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Chapter Text

Sandor

It was the end of summer and the grey sky looked as if it were going to rain.

The coffee Sandor Clegane was having on a terrace of a small coffee shop was conveniently black. He still found that the mug and the quantity of liquid in it should have been way bigger to merit the name coffee. Not a fragile little thing with delicate handle he could squash with his huge fingers if he was not careful.

His liaison officer was late, the boy as stupid as he was rich if someone asked for Sandor Clegane's opinion. Unluckily, no one did, and the boy's uncle Stannis just brought him in three weeks ago, saying that the boy had a decent military training and wanted to work for national security. Wanting and actually working for the damn thing were two very different things, at any rate, and the handsome blond boy seemed almost retarded in some aspects. One could not say that to Stannis, who was as stubborn as he was smart, so everybody did their best to tolerate Joffrey.

Piazza San Marco was getting full of tourists when the wonder of an army boy finally appeared.

"Hi," he said, "sorry I'm late," he had the grace to mumble.

"I was about to leave," Sandor Clegane said curtly.

"Not yet," Joffrey contradicted him with an arrogance only truly stupid persons could possess. "There is an important reason for my delay. Mr Baratheon sent me to the airport to fetch the new agent you are to work with in the coming days."

"Where is he?" Clegane asked. "Hiding behind you?" He guffawed at his own stupid joke, starting to hate Venice as much as he hated mornings.

There was no one to be seen except for Joffrey and more tourists. The waiter brought another espresso without anyone ordering it. The boy smelled it and pushed the cup away. "Disgusting," he said. "Tea would be better but they don't know how to make it over here." To Clegane, he said in a conspiracy tone of an idiot thinking himself to be James Bond: "Our new colleague will join us shortly."

Not having anything better to do, Sandor drank Joff's coffee, sugarless, hoping it would prevent him from falling asleep. The night before was long. If the Italians could not make proper tea, they surely produced good wine. It was nothing he couldn't handle, but still.

A new bunch of tourists attracted his attention, as he tried hard to parry Joffrey's incessant talking with a sound similar to "a-ha" and an occasional "m-hm", pretending he was listening, while in reality he didn't register a single word being said. He was going to check the paperwork for the task and figure out what he was supposed to do in Venice later on. Maybe ask Varys a question or two if he didn't find it clear. Whatever the boy said was rubbish anyway. From Sandor's previous experience of the one and only operation they worked on together, he was never able to focus on essential details. Only on his perceived role in the affair, a highly uninteresting and unnecessary part of it.

There was a young woman in a white summer dress, taking photographs of Saint Mark's church with her phone. When she was satisfied with one of them, she stooped, probably tweeting the damn thing or putting it on Facebook. Sandor Clegane despised social networks even if he was able to use them at need. His avatar on all of them was a large black dog with flaming eyes. The thing looked better than his normal face, and at least he didn't receive too many messages of working girls saying hi and similar.

She lingered behind the group she was with, and tied her brown hair in a tight bun on top of her head. When her friends were gone, she looked around in confusion.

Good lord, but she's even too stupid to follow the tourist guide, Sandor concluded.

Then, the girl walked in their direction, staring at all the terraces of all coffee shops before she noticed Joffrey. Her innocent features spread in a small smile.

"Hello, Mr Baratheon," she said as she took her seat next to the blond boy, not sparing a single look for Sandor Clegane and his two empty espresso cups. She looked at Joffrey as if he were Prince Charming or something. Unbelievable, Sandor Clegane thought. Where is she from? Oz?

"It's Joffrey, I told you, my dear," the boy said in a flirtatious voice, getting a strand of blond hair out of his swamp coloured green eyes.

"Well, then, Joffrey...When do we start? I am eager to begin with my first task," she said.

"We?" Joffrey asked, perplexed. "Why, my dear, while I am the most important agent in our organisation, you did not honestly expect to be paired with me on your first job, did you? You will work with my associate here. That much was clear from the paperwork you received."

"Oh," the lady said, "I only received them now by email. I didn't have time to go through the materials, I swear." Her voice was pleading as she was trying to excuse herself for her insufficiency. "Mr Varys said there was a delay in sending for technical reasons. Or maybe a security breach, he's not sure."

More likely you can't read, or not fast enough my dear, Sandor said in his head. His amusement sharply turned into boiling fury when his hangover clouded brains clicked together slower than usual, and he understood two things. First of all, little shit, Joffrey, lied to the girl that he was an important agent, and not just an apprentice serving as liaison for things of little or no importance. He, Sandor Clegane, was the best agent of the service. He never bragged about it and never thought much about it, but it was the truth. And he was to work with a stupid girl on a "job of a century", as Varys had put it before Sandor Clegane embarked on a flight to Venice two days ago.

"My name is Sansa, Sansa Stark," the stupid girl in white said to him then, and he saw red when she outstretched her arm.

Swift as a snake, he turned toward her the side of his face which he had previously kept in the shadow of a large sun umbrella, which would have been white as the dress she was wearing if it weren't soiled by usage. At the same time he caught her hand so hard he knew he must have caused her pain.

"Sandor Clegane," he grunted at her.

Her friendly face changed in a mask of shock. Her eyes went open, mirroring the blue and grey of the sky of Venice. She fought to keep her mouth closed, suppressing a cry. The elaborately styled bun she had made of her hair fell apart without her noticing. A lost ray of sun passing high above them illuminated a copper tone in it, a glint of red that the clouds had kept hidden by then. Dim-witted and beautiful, by all means, Sandor Clegane thought, feeling the scars on his face twitch.

Until she opened her mouth and said politely: "Nice to meet you, Mr Clegane."

She shook his hand vigorously, ignoring the pain he must have been causing her. And if he didn't see the initial shock on her face, used as he was to study the reactions of others to his ugly face with sick precision, he could have sworn that she had kept it even and friendly all the time.

Then, she turned her attention to Joffrey, and gave him that sweet look again. The way girls usually looked at Joffrey, anyway.

Sandor Clegane was overwhelmed with desire to show off his own achievements in the 15 years of service, such as he has never felt before. One of the colleagues he didn't loathe that much, Jaime Lannister, always claimed that some girls were attracted to danger, or to the guys wearing guns in their expensive suits. He already forgot the exact insipid argument. Maybe she was one of them.

"Well then, Joffrey," she said as softly as rain could fall, "I hope that I will do right with Mr Clegane, so that one day you and I may work together."

"I hope so as well," Joffrey said.

You hope, Sandor Clegane thought. There were things money and his uncle's unquestionable influence in the service could not buy. Becoming an agent was one of them.

He couldn't tell why it irked him no end that Sansa Stark so obviously fancied Joffrey Baratheon.

Chapter Text

Sansa

Sansa rushed back to her hotel when the two men left her, overwhelmed by a flood of mixed emotions. It was a quiet modest place on one of the smaller canals of Venice. She was somewhat displeased that Joffrey did not escort her back after his gallant behaviour in the coffee shop. It was to be expected, she reminded herself of her place in the real world.

When her half brother Jon Snow recommended Sansa to Mr Varys for a task of infiltrating high society in one of the European countries, it all sounded so exciting, but the reality of it was so much better than she could ever dream of. When she landed in Venice, it felt like her life had finally begun. The city was more beautiful than the images of it she looked up on the net, and the most handsome guy she has seen in a long time came to fetch her at the airport.

And then there was the other one, the scary dark haired giant with half his face blown away. And that man was only the second in line to the charming youth who was to be her tutor in the noble art of spying! She wondered how dangerous Joffrey could be when he was working in earnest and not merely welcoming new agents out of politeness or... She didn't dare hope he liked her in any way.

Sansa knew she was reasonably pretty for a tall girl, like her mother before her. She'd also known already in her teens that boys would date her only to inherit shares in a large fishing industry her father owned in Alaska. Boys normally didn't like tall girls. She was trying to make herself look shorter when she walked next to Joffrey, so that he wouldn't notice she had a few inches over him, as over most guys. A boy named Ramsay made sure she understood all that in high school. She made sure he had a blue eye to remind him of their short-lived relationship for another week.

Sansa, the girl who believed at 11 that boys would love her, wanted to study art history.

On the contrary, the single girl in her mid-twenties held a PhD in communications. Her field of expertise was the security of communications and fight against cybercrime in all its aspects. She imagined she would be working for an institution, linked to the US national defence, maybe. She never imagined she would be approached by intelligence so shortly after graduating, and she felt painfully inadequate. Yet she would not back from the challenge: this could be what she needed for a successful active career. Otherwise she could just end up teaching at the university as so many of her girl colleagues, waiting to get married and have kids while men got all the interesting jobs of actually combating crime. Once she would have wanted a family, but not any more. She didn't want to pay for having kids with her father's shares, so it was best not to have any children at all. At 18, she nearly opted for a sterilisation procedure, but her sister Arya, who was normally way crazier than Sansa ever was, talked her out of it.

"Never blow your own chances in life," Arya had said, and for once, Sansa had listened.

Laptop wouldn't start as fast as she wanted it, and the file sent by Mr Varys was taking its time to download, in line with all the necessary security protocols. Bored, she logged into her Facebook account, and liked a few entries from her friends and family. Jeyne Poole was about to marry Ramsay. She wished her all the best, tagging Ramsay in her post for the sake of politeness. Margaery had a new boyfriend, but she wouldn't post his picture, yet. It was going to come as a surprise to everyone, Margaery claimed, excited. Sansa's mother was collecting money for education of orphan children.

Boring, boring, boring. Sansa sighed.

She looked at her avatar and wondered why after all that time she wasn't able to have a Facebook page with her own name and image. A tiny red head of a lovebird looked ever so gently at her, almost ready to peep. For the thousandth time she desired to change that, and for the thousandth time she gave up.

She uploaded the picture of Joffrey and Mr Clegane she took with a camera hidden in her purse, pearl white to match the dress she was wearing. Her mother would have been proud of her attire that day, she knew. She supposed their faces were no secret, and no one told her otherwise. Mr Clegane's face would be hard to keep as a secret anyway. She giggled at the ridiculous thought. "My new colleagues," she typed, shyly, and posted the pic.

When she looked at the picture again, Joffrey looked somewhat dull in two dimensions. She liked to take her photos in black and white, a remnant of her love of art at a young age. Mr Clegane, on the other hand, could be a Picasso's drawing in his early phases, maybe even a Matisse with his bold strokes of powerful, simple and angry lines, or all that at once.

She thought better and edited a comment for her friends. "My new colleagues," she repeated. "Which one do you like best?"

When she was done, the email from Mr Varys was ready for viewing.

There was very little information in writing. They were to attend a large party at the palace of Prince Doran Martell in the surroundings of Venice. He held it every year at the beginning of September, to celebrate the end of summer and the change of seasons. They were to look for a person who was to be their contact and give them further instructions.

The bulk of the email were photographs of the palace, in high resolution images, as if knowing the building in detail was of utmost importance to their task.

The party would last for a week, like a wedding feast in some barbaric faraway country Prince Doran originated from. The name ended on -stan like the former Soviet Republics in Central Asia, Kazakhstan, for instance, but it was none of those countries. Sansa was positive she's never heard the name before.

They were to stay there for the entire week, maybe more.

Prince Doran only invited couples, rich couples. Dating without marriage was a crime punishable by a penalty of death in Dornistan, Sansa read the name of the country again. This time, she retained it, wondering where the hell it was, and if they beheaded people who had sex before marriage.

Because of the Dornish customs, she and Sandor Clegane were to pose as newly wed couple.

Sansa swallowed and switched off the screen.

She remembered the ugly, big man and the unhidden contempt in his eyes when he looked at her.

He thinks of me as stupid, like most guys, she sighed. At 25 she found that she lacked strength to constantly go on proving them wrong.

At least he won't hurt me if I'm not his type, she thought with some relief.

Oddly enough, she forgot to regret that she was not going to pose as Joffrey's wife. Instead, she switched her screen back on. Methodically, she proceeded to study the pictures and the plans of Prince Doran's palace. They were there for a reason, and she was about to figure it first.

Chapter Text

Sandor

The damn party in the countryside of Venice had to be properly announced and introduced. With a ball in the city no less. Sandor Clegane fervently hoped that the renaissance palace Prince Doran Martell rented for the occasion was going to sink and that the wooden poles holding it on the surface were well and fully rotten.

He was not that lucky.

The old fashioned education his father had forced upon him long time ago, when they moved to England in his early childhood, made sure he could waltz at need. However, he had no wish whatsoever to exercise the somewhat rusty habit with Mrs Clegane that damn Varys had forced upon him. How old was she anyway? Twelve? Perhaps Joffrey could take over that part of the evening gallantry, he mused.

No, you moron, he rectified himself, then Prince Doran will see right through your cover, and Varys always does things for a reason.

Having to meet Prince Doran of all possible and impossible foreign leaders he had to become acquainted with in his career made his blood run cold. He'd thought he'd never have to meet the man. There would be only one worse thing, and that was too meet his younger brother, Oberyn, who was luckily abroad, looking for hidden treasures, people said, or rather, rare snakes, in the jungles of South America, if Varys had not been wrong. He rarely was. But with this job they were about to do, even Varys had seemed uncertain, shaken, Sandor found, at the very least. It didn't bode well.

And I'm supposed to figure it out with a female amateur and a complete moron as partners, he thought, waiting in the lobby of the small hotel for his wife to make an appearance.

At least she is punctual, he thought several seconds later, when it was his turn to fight against gaping in shock.

She wore a dark blue dress, lovely as the evening sky in summer, and a modest smile to match it. Her hair was up again. Only one disobedient willowy strand wandered idly over the broad silky scarf that covered her back. He wondered if she was aware of that imperfection and decided not to inform her.

All men will ask her for a dance, Sandor Clegane thought, no issue there...

She was something.

"You look marvellous, my dear," Joffrey was obviously the first one to spit out a pleasantry.

"Thank you," she answered and looked at Sandor Clegane's polished shoes, probably expecting a compliment when she could not bear the sight of him. Pissed because of that, he was still oddly glad that his shoes had been clean for the occasion.

"Let's go," he mumbled, pulling her by the arm. He even tried to be gentle, but apparently not hard enough. He must have jerked her so badly that she'd lost one of her shoes when she moved. They were too flat for his liking, he concluded, and they made her look even younger than she was. Joffrey returned for it and handed it back with a small gentlemanly bow.

"Thank you," she whispered, blushing in awe before her prince.

Then she glanced up at Sandor Clegane's ugly face. He could swear he'd seen a trace of untamed fury ravishing her perfect features before the expression of perfect stillness returned to them. I must be spoiling her evening, he thought, his own mood getting darker. So be it.

Joffrey had the grace to drive them to Prince Doran's rented palace in silence. At the pillar flanked entrance hall, smelling on sweat of too many guests who had already arrived, a thin obsequious man checked their invitations and asked them to wait for a while. Sansa excused herself immediately, to go to the lady's room. "Take your time, Madam," the man at the entrance said. "Prince Doran surely does the same when he's welcoming his guests."

Joffrey spoke then, and it would be best if he did not.

"Isn't it lovely?" little shit asked of Sandor Clegane.

"What?" he barked back, impatient about waiting. If he had to meet Doran Martell, he'd rather do it instantly than stand in the hall for ages.

"How she's afraid of us. She is in total awe of me. I've always wanted a girlfriend like that, old-fashioned, admiring a man as a proper woman should..." Joffrey's swampy eyes glittered ominously and Sandor Clegane was sick. He wondered what other treatment a real man should deal a woman in Joffrey's mind, and he had a pretty good idea of what it might include. It was unspoken public knowledge in the service that Staniss' older brother, Joffrey's father, a very rich man, occasionally hit his equally rich mother. It was one of the reasons why Stannis decided to take the boy away from his family. To become a man, Stannis pleaded with their superiors. They listened, and Joffrey stayed.

"You'll wait for us in the parking lot," he said, icily.

"What?" Joffrey stuttered, "Varys said-

"Fuck Varys," Sandor Clegane snarled. "You do as I say or I swear to you, I'll ship you back to uncle Stannis in a bag for diplomatic mail."

It worked. Or it would have worked.

Joffrey backed off, but when Sandor Clegane turned around, Sansa Stark was standing at the door of the lady's room, almost trembling on her feet.

She must have heard me shouting, he thought, embarrassed in the face of her fear, the reaction Joffrey sought in women. Sandor Clegane got it so often and he never wanted it. His own fantasy was rather different, not that he would admit it to anyone. He dreamed of a gentle touch of a woman who would feel at ease around him. Who would be kind to him and hug him or let herself be hugged by him in her sleep.

Crestfallen, he just told her when they were finally invited to enter: "Come!"

He had to give her credit for the apparent calm she showed as they walked on together, when the shiver of her body he could feel from close by kept telling a very different story.

"Mr and Mrs Sandor Clegane!" they were announced in a shrill voice, making Sandor Clegane wonder if it was true they still had eunuchs in Dornistan.

And just like that, they stood in front of Prince Doran Martell. Sandor stretched out his right hand, but the soft looking man seated in a litter, roughly ten years his senior, would not take it.

That's it, Sandor remembered, he can't walk. Some sickness when he was a child in that desert land of theirs...

"Mr Clegane," the older man said affably, "what a surprise."

"I could have said the same when I received your kind invitation," Sandor muttered.

"Congratulations, Mr Clegane, Mrs Clegane," Prince Doran continued as his shrewd eyes roamed to Sansa. "Yet I cannot help but wonder... how come that a newly wed couple does not stay at the same hotel?"

Sandor Clegane thought that the ground was going to open under his feet. He knows we're not married, he knew for a certainty. There goes a job of a lifetime. Varys was going to go all crazy on him.

"Prince Doran," Sansa said sweetly, "please, do keep our little secret. You see.. We... We eloped. Or I did. My family doesn't take it kindly that I wish to marry a man who is ten years my senior. Please. Venice is so romantic, don't you think? Sandor here has been looking for a priest the entire day!"

The few freckles she had on a perfectly milk coloured face disappeared, drowned in the suddenly rosy coloration that invaded her skin from all sides. Sandor had to admit, it was the prettiest blush he had seen so far. How often can she do that? he thought, irritated.

At that, she stood on tiptoes. Never releasing one of his arms she'd been holding all the time since the entrance. Mute, she dealt him a soft kiss on his marred cheek.

Sandor Clegane found he didn't have to fake his own embarrassment. He gave her a bewildered look, unwillingly inhaling her perfume as the vague scent abandoned his face and floated back to hers. His voice shook and lacked depth when he spoke to Prince Doran again.

"There you have it," he stuttered.

It was maybe time to get religious, or it was sheer luck that the prince took his astonishment as a sign that they were telling the truth.

"Well, Mr Clegane," he said with mirth, "best find a priest before the feast in the countryside then. I would be sorry to miss your presence. Or to have trouble with the Italian justice if you choose to attend, unmarried..."

The threat was clear in Doran's voice, friendly until that moment. Sansa stared at him, not understanding.

"My only trouble with justice," Sandor Clegane snarled, "was a long time ago, and to your family's benefit. Best remember that."

"Oh, I shall, to be sure..." Prince Doran said. "How could I ever forget? I wonder if your charming fiancée is aware of that..."

"Sandor and I have no secrets from each other," Sansa singsonged smoothly, still hanging on his arm.

"No? Good," Prince Doran gave Sandor Clegane a killing look. Bang, it said, before the man spoke again. "Then you already know how your future husband killed his own brother. A most dreadful crime, I heard."

Sansa squeezed Sandor's arm so hard that he thought she was going to draw blood from his elbow. Yet she didn't flinch or made a face, of any kind.

"Most dreadful indeed," she parroted and stood her ground.

The lady of the couple behind them coughed nervously. The line of newly arrived guests turned too long to be kept in waiting, Sandor noticed, and so did the prince.

"Well then, my dear," he said to Sansa, "enjoy your evening. I am certain it will be most remarkable."

Soon they were walking from the ballroom to the somewhat smaller dining room. All seats were named and there were servants helping people to their places, but Sandor purposefully avoided them, and led Sansa to their table on his own.

Once they were there, he automatically pulled out a chair for Sansa to sit down. She looked at him as if it was the strangest thing he could've done. Cold bloody murderers cannot be gentlemen in her idea, Sandor Clegane realized with a pinch of sadness where his irritation had been.

"Thank you," she said as a living corpse, when she accepted the seat he had offered.

Sandor Clegane sank on a chair next to her and started looking for wine. It was going to be a long night.

Chapter Text

The beautiful old wooden floor creaked beneath Sansa's feet under the high round table. Sansa wondered how much Prince Doran must have paid to the authorities to allow so many people to walk in the palace without plastic bags over their shoes for the entire evening. The damage was going to be significant and require costly restoration efforts.

Pitying the work of art she dishonoured with her steps helped her forget who she was paired to work with. A little bit, at least.

The white damask tablecloth hanged almost to her feet. A very large bronze coloured chandelier glimmered above the dining room, looking way more ancient than it was. A modern lamp designed to fit in an old building, Sansa noticed, with dozens of small bulbs housed within the shiny metal holders, to appear as if they were shedding candlelight or moonlight, and not merely low wattage energy saving electricity.

The set of plates in front of her and the long line of glasses and cutlery would have shocked her more than Mr Clegane did, if her mother had not taught her the proper order of courses, eating and drinking on gala dinners. You never know when you might need that, mother had said, and Sansa was a good girl who always obeyed her parents. Well, most of the time, she corrected herself, forcing the embarrassing memories of dating Ramsay Bolton away.

When they were left alone, Sandor Clegane never even bothered to deny that he had killed his brother. What kind of man could do that? Sansa wondered. And then there was his voice as well, loud and frightening in his anger. Would he hit me if I upset him? Ramsay had tried but Sansa didn't allow it. But Mr Clegane was a more imposing man, and he could be more difficult to fight off. Still, she could not admit that Jon or Mr Varys would make her work with someone who'd hurt her. So she did her best to cling to that belief and ignore Prince Doran's words.

All seats at their table were taken pretty soon. A short thin gentleman called Petyr Baelish was placed next to her, and an olive skinned lady, Nymeria Sand, next to Mr Clegane. Both of them were unaccompanied. Lady Nymeria wore a long black braid and an odd brown dress with plenty of gilded fastenings on top of it, revealing barbaric splendour. Her gown clinked when she sat down, enhancing her copious body curves, and the grace of her otherwise silent movements. To Sansa's surprise, she was barefoot. The four of them were facing two European looking couples, Mr and Mrs Lolys Stokeworth, and Mr and Mrs Tyrek Lannister. Mrs Stokeworth was a plump elderly lady. She darted glances of adoration at her her dark haired tall husband, clearly some years her junior, who seemed every inch a mobster from the movies Sansa's little brothers liked to watch. On the other hand, little Mrs Ermesande Lannister looked strangely like a child, and Sansa wondered how Mr Lannister could ever have secured a legal permit to get married to her.

"You must be Sansa," Mr Baelish said, startling her in her observations.

"Sansa Stark," she replied, pretending she was just about to read his name tag as he must have read hers... "Pleased to meet you, Mr Baelish."

"Oh, the pleasure is all mine, my dear," he said in a mocking tone, "I used to be a good friend of your mother. Wasn't Catelyn Tully as beautiful as you are when she was of your age?"

"My mother is still beautiful," Sansa said with modesty. "I am not so sure about myself, but I hope to make her proud of me."

"By marrying this brute who has spent some time paying his debt to the society?" Nymeria Sand rudely interrupted, pointing at Mr Clegane who did his best to ignore the conversation. His shoulders were slumped in a gesture of defeat, and he studied all guests present with a sullen glare, nursing a glass of red wine in one giant hand.

"Sansa, maybe we could take a walk later, to get some air," Mr Baelish suggested. "The garden here is particularly beautiful, I heard. And I would love to hear more about how Catelyn is now doing."

"If you would excuse us," Sandor Clegane said stiffly all of a sudden. The word please was apparently not in his dictionary. He stood abruptly on his feet. "My dear," he said, offering Sansa his enormous arm again. At least he didn't jerk her this time. Small mercies, Sansa thought. Sarcasm dripped from every word he used to address her, and she couldn't quite understand what he wanted from her.

Until she heard the orchestra intoning the first notes of a familiar music, a dance. A waltz, she corrected herself. The fast kind they danced in continental Europe. Oh no, she thought.

The antique floor crunched some more under their joint steps as he led her away, and her flats felt inadequate for what was to come. She could dance well enough in a club, but she rarely indulged in more traditional dancing in couples, mostly because she was a bit too tall for that. No such problem now, she thought with the same sarcasm Mr Clegane used when speaking. He was one of the tallest men she'd ever seen, towering over her like a lantern post, or rather a funerary statue carved out of black marble.

"My dear," he repeated, leading her into the dance. "In case you have found some time to read, we're here looking for a contact to figure out what we should do. Can you keep that much information in your pretty head?"

Pretty? He thinks of me as pretty? It was the first word Sansa retained from his awful sentence before she grasped the rest.

"Mr Baelish," she said with cool smartness. "No one here would know my mother except if they were given such information on purpose. The offer to take a walk may be an excuse to discuss other issues."

"Could be an excuse to try other things as well," Mr Clegane said pensively, weighing his words for a change. "I'll wager it's Lady Nym. A daughter of Oberyn Martell would never sit next to a Clegane if she didn't have a very good reason to do it. She's one of Prince Doran's many nieces. She could have chosen any place she wanted."

Sansa found that Mr Clegane's dark voice was less unpleasant when he wasn't outright ridiculing her or yelling.

"One way to check," Sansa said sweetly to the sound of music. To her delight, she was dancing. And this somehow made the rest of the conversation flow easier. She never imagined the evening to go that way.

"Yeah? And that is?" he asked.

"You take a walk with Mr Baelish to get acquainted with a dear friend of my mother's and I ask Lady Nymeria to show me the palace. As a host she should not refuse. It would not be polite."

Mr Clegane gave her a look which said that maybe she was not that hopeless after all. "Deal," he said briefly, and for the first time since they met he didn't sound awful at all. "Let's finish this damn thing and get the job done."

What he meant with the damn thing was the waltz. Looking through her an above her, as if she had not been there, he made her glide faster and faster over the ancient parquet in total silence.

She had been stiff in his arms at first. Then, she listened to the orchestra, and directed her gaze for the first time properly at the ballroom itself. The high ceiling loomed plain white above the large square hall. It descended smoothly to the walls below by means of a few simple geometric profiles, long, thin, lightly protruding ribbons of white and gold, circling all around the dance floor.

The old fashioned mirrors on the walls were like living eyes of some strange beings from the legend, reflecting the dancers and the musicians alike, staring mutely forward between decorative window frames. They were the judging eyes between the thin panels of glass darkened by the night. All lights were electric now, and there were no torches or candles attached next to the white stucco decorations on the walls, but the dancing couples swerved and swirled in the mirrors as elegant as the noble heroes and their ladies from the past long gone. She caught a glimpse of her own twirling shadow, dark blue and auburn against the blackness of the man holding her.

Soon she lost count of the rounds they made. It was not only one waltz, she realized. It was all of them. When the music stopped completely, Sansa was giddy with excitement. She would have gone on and on and on.

But when Mr Clegane followed her back to the table, she couldn't help feeling diminished, and slightly ashamed.

It was as pitiful as it was fitting that she, the college nerd, a single person by her own decision and choosing, should spend the most magical evening of her life in a company of a convicted murderer.

Chapter Text

Sandor

The seat of the creepy bastard who invited Sansa for a walk was conveniently empty, but a mint perfumed note lay on the girl's napkin. She had set it aside primly when they went dancing, to use it for the next course. His own napkin lay unusable in a wine soaked puddle on the floor.

He should stop thinking of dancing if he was to work tonight.

"What does it say?" he asked her under the voice, happy that the rest of the people at their table were busy exchanging words about the levels of humidity in Venice. Even Lady Nym seemed absorbed by the passionate subject.

The Hall of Swans, it said. They read it together, and shared a look that could be called of complicity if she didn't immediately lower her trusting eyes, to look at his crumpled napkin with infinite sadness.

"What's wrong?" he barked, stirring little Ermesande Lannister who was playing with a wooden doll as the adults talked. Sansa straightened her head and chin, but he could say she was still not at ease in his presence, at best. "Me, I guess," he said. "Sorry for the asking," he mumbled. He stood up, needing fresh air.

"Where are you going?" she talked through him, not at him, a well mannered fiancee chitchatting with her man.

"To the Hall of Swans," he said.

The said Hall was not hard to find. A narrow corridor separated it from the dining room. The title was hung on a small wooden board in front of the door, so that the tourists would know what they were visiting, on more normal days when the palace was not rented, but served as what it was, a museum.

Unlike the rooms housing the dinner, the Hall of Swans was dark, and when Sandor tried to press the light switch, it didn't work. He went from the door toward the window, avoiding the old fragile furniture, but there was no one there. The moon was out over the garden below, and he could see better. The floor was some sort of marble, not wood, and swans were depicted on the ceiling.

Then, he sniffed. The air smelled like the dirty old man who claimed to be a friend of Sansa's mother, and like something, or someone else entirely.

"Mr Baelish," he called out in a tone as neutral as he could muster. An object was about to fly past him, and he ducked faster than he thought possible, instincts taking over. A blade hit the flower patterned wallpaper in front of him, with tiny roses barely discernible in the almost absence of light. The knife would have been buried somewhere in his body if he reacted any slower. Several dark hairs from his scalp hung loosely from is hilt. Razor sharp, he concluded.

"You are the Hound," a sensual voice said, incredulously. Golden details clinked as Nymeria Sand walked out of the shadows into the weak pool of moonlight streaming in from the window.

"And?" he asked back.

"I know very well where the heart is," she commented, "so the reason you bent on time must be the infamous inhuman smell and hearing abilities of the illusive secret agent called the Hound..."

"So?" he wouldn't give in or admit she was right. Secret agent Hound was a legend among world intelligence professionals. Only three people in total knew his identity to be Sandor Clegane: Varys who created him, in a way, the Hound's little sister and Sandor Clegane himself.

"And here I thought that the infamous Hound was straight, not seeking male company in obscure chambers," she mocked him.

"I have no idea who the Hound is," he lied. "I was looking for my fiancée," he said flatly, summing two and two in his head. If Lady Nym was here, Baelish was with Sansa. His guts told him it was not a good thing. "Mr Baelish summoned her here." He showed her the note.

"She'll be fine," the dark haired beauty picked up her knife, and slid it in a sheath under her skirts. "For a little while, at least."

"Tell me," she continued, "what is the truth?"

"About what?" he asked, sullen, refusing to share details about his past no matter who did the asking. The Martells wouldn't buy it anyway. Not even Varys did when he sacked him out of the juvenile prison when he was barely 16, on the condition he work for the service for the rest of his natural life. And that was half of his lifetime ago. They made him sign a contract that he'd never marry or start a family. A medieval thing, really. Then again, it mattered little in his case, he supposed. He was just fine on his own.

"We asked Varys to send us his best man. You can imagine we were a bit surprised to see you."

"Whatever I could tell you, you'd not believe me," he said, blatant honesty flaring in his dark gaze.

"That much is true," Nymeria confessed.

Silence danced with moonlight in the Hall of Swans.

"Why not ask her?" Sandor Clegane suggested, almost shy.

"Elia?" Lady Nym asked, distractedly pulling her shining black braid. "She's been seeing a European shrink. She's unable to talk about what happened 16 years ago. She's blocking it on an unconscious level, the shrink says."

"Who's the shrink?" he asked.

"Pucey, no, Dr Pycelle, I think."

"Ah," the Hound said and kept his mouth shut. There was no way Elia was ever going to remember anything with Pycelle as her doctor. And it was perhaps for the best if she did not. She could live just fine not knowing. "He has good credentials," he added, hoping Nymeria would now finally spill out whatever she wanted to tell him, so that he could go and find Sansa.

"Mr Clegane," Nymeria said, and her voice sounded tired beyond measure. "Dornistan is a peaceful country no matter what your government believes. It would sadden us greatly if we would become responsible for atrocities that do not correspond to this philosophy. Mother Rhoyne would curse us, and the little water we still have would be lost forever, the sacred books say."

"What am I looking for?" he put it bluntly, to cut the religious crap she'd been giving him.

"A seed... a fruit..." she stuttered. "An egg, why not?"

There was another round of silence. The moon waned in the garden, as if it was tired of riddles too.

"If that would be all?" Sandor Clegane still lingered for a moment, to give Nymeria an occasion to speak further, while all he could feel was a terrible mental itch, a desire to storm away and search for his pretty dancing partner. Stupid or not. He owed the girl that much. Many people died on their first task. He didn't know when he decided that Sansa was not going to be a part of those statistics.

"For now," she said, and he bolted out of the Hall of Swans, pondering the nonsense about fruit and eggs to calm himself. Rage would not help, he knew.

In the ballroom, the couples still danced. The little girl, Ermesande, was alone at their table, playing with Lego blocks, and the other guests have left it. The Hound took a sip of wine and carefully wiped his mouth with Sansa's napkin, to remind himself.

Of the scent he felt when she kissed his cheek.

He proceeded to walk around the palace in long strides, from the dining room to the ballroom and to the entrance hall. There, he felt it. A trail of fragrance, leaving.

"Which parking lot are we using?" he barked at the kind man who still guarded the entry and didn't deserve his impatience.

"Further in front and to your left," he was told, and then, he was running, unable to hide any longer the terrible nervousness he had felt ever since he realized Sansa was gone.

He found their car first. Joffrey was asleep in it, his golden curls sprawled all over the steering wheel. The Hound opened a door, and shook him. "Hey," he said, "James!" he mocked him. "Pull toward the exit. I'll meet you there in a second"

The scent was still there, diluted among fuel and exhaust vapours under the low flat ceiling. The garage was all on one level, small and crowded, with more cars than proper parking places, thanks to the damn gala. All cars had Italian license plates so he had nothing to go by other than his nose. He reconstructed Baelish in his head. Ugly. Grey-green eyes. Expensive clothes. Slightly showing off he'd been wearing designer stuff. Something Tyrek Lannister and Mrs Stokeworth never did. A person who was not born with money, then, he thought. He narrowed his search to the most expensive cars and widened his nostrils further. The car he looked for was right in front of his nose, it turned. It was an inconspicuous metallic grey BMW. A closer look revealed a unique driving console, and a set of special features. Every one of them would significantly increase the basic price of the vehicle.

A couple walked after him, hand in hand. He whistled, playing stupid, feeling his pockets for a key he didn't have. The scent he followed intensified when he approached the back side of the car. He seized the pocket knife which served more frequently as a bottle opener, glad he always had that in his pocket. In two clicks, the trunk was open.

The bag inside kicked and moved. He hauled it over his shoulder and hurried to the exit, not bothering to close the car. Baelish could do it himself for all he cared.

Another couple passing by gave him a queer look, but he just glared at them as frightening as he could. They decided to look away.

Like everyone looked away when it was Elia's turn, he remembered, bitterly, grateful for the cowardly reaction of the passers-bye all the same.

He shoved the bag on the back seat of their car and commanded Joffrey: "Drive, James! Our hotel, not hers."

For once, the boy listened. Maybe Stannis was right. Maybe serving others could yet make a man out of him.

When they were at least a mile away from the palace, he dared open a bag, which had been twitching and trying to hit him all the time. If he were Baelish, he would have them followed with discretion.

She was gagged and tied and her hair was tousled from the struggle like a mane of a fabulous beast. The dark blue softness of her gown was slightly torn open on the back. Luckily, her breasts were still covered. She was too close for his liking and Sandor Clegane swallowed. He untied her hands and pulled out the cloth which was strapped over her mouth. It stank of some medicine that should normally put a man to sleep. Or a woman. Or would have if she didn't keep her lips stubbornly glued together under it by a sheer force of her will, he supposed. Sansa's response to being freed was instantaneous.

First she slapped him, and then she spat in his face. Joffrey startled and nearly drove the car to a lamp post.

"And there I thought you were the kind of girl saying please and thank you all the time," he said, cynically, wiping his face, inhaling the unique smell of that product of her body as well, against his better judgement. He was mightily pissed and pleased about her reaction at the same time.

If truth be told, the girl was not as hopeless as he thought.

Chapter Text

The siren blared instantly far behind them, da, diiii, da, diiii, like a trumpet calling for a battle assembly in films where people wore armour and wielded swords his father used to watch. When he was still alive, Sandor mused. And that seemed like a lifetime ago, just like the forced fencing lessons of his youth.

Shrill and ominous, the sound was coming right after them as if the sight of Sansa's head in their car meant green on the traffic light. Blatantly ignoring the true colour of her hair.

"Get down!" Sandor yelled at Sansa as he did the same. His large head was too big a target to be left standing upright. And he didn't particularly relish having the other half of his face arranged to match the ruined one if he could choose. Asymmetric was just fine. He could live with that.

Joffrey ducked as well, under the steering wheel. The car temporarily lost direction. Sansa shrieked. "Not you, moron!" the Hound barked in disbelief. "Turn somewhere, anywhere, best in a street too small for a car they are having."

They were having a fire brigade van. Despite all the water, fires have apparently been frequent enough in Venice.

Sansa began crying. "I'm sorry," she said, "I thought you were them."

Why does she always have to apologise? he wondered.

"And who are exactly them?" he asked, busying himself with his door. Varys would always equip his car with some emergency aid gadgets. It was only a matter of digging deep enough to find something he could use.

"One called the other Brune. Brune didn't call the first one by any name..." she stammered, somewhat incoherent. They both reeled left and right, and landed all over each other when Joffrey did as he was told and veered in an obscure one direction alley next to an unimportant canal. Sandor's mouth ended up stuffed with blue silk. He was tempted to bite in it, to see what she would say, but he decided against it. He has already frightened her enough as it was for one day,

The manoeuvre came not a second too late. Sandor pulled the window open to judge the situation. The canal stank. The damp air behind them sizzled, and a trash can went down in the dirt with a clang, just on the place where their car would have been. It meant that the pursuit came close enough to open fire, and the alley they got in might be just broad enough for the van to pass. They didn't have much time.

He spat blue silk which turned out to be her sleeve, still clinging to her arm. He saw he managed to rip off the synthetic covering the door when he had stumbled over her. Sansa gave him a look as if he were a naked savage wearing feathers. His cheek still itched from where she slapped him, and he wondered what else she could do with such lethal force. His thoughts got very unprofessional at best in the blink of an eye. He gave her a broad grin, enjoying it thoroughly when she lowered her eyes. Smiling made him uglier than usual, he knew. He made a mental note to find himself a woman soon. It might be what he needed to clear his mind. There was another course of action possible but coaxing girls into bed wasn't his thing. Best if she slept with young Mr Baratheon. He could only do her a favour of beating Joffrey bloody if the boy treated her with anything but respect.

"What is that?" she asked, calm and composure reigning on her pretty face once more.

"Nothing," he said brusquely.

That was the package within the door. It was green, and the stuff in it smelled inflammable. He wished it was a gun. He always preferred firearms to explosives. But in his line of work it would not do to be picky. Sandor grabbed the parcel gingerly and regretted he quit smoking.

"Anyone has some light?" he asked, knowing it was in vain.

Surprisingly, the girl, Sansa, reached into her purse, and handed him a box of matches with the same polite gesture she had used to pass him the salt during dinner.

The world behind them burst in a big whoosh of green flames as soon as he released Varys' present in the air and tossed a match toward it. He did it only when the car advanced a bit further, bumping on the irregular cobble stones of the alley pavement in small speed. Varys was unique in what he did. The best man in planning spook operations and providing his agents with means to succeed. The stuff only needed air to keep burning over seven feet high, creating a thick unnatural foaming curtain between them and the enemy. Sandor felt cold sweat flooding his brow. Ashamed, he lowered his eyes. You're not a man, he told himself, you're still that little boy and you know it. They won't notice, he hoped, hiding his fears as good as he was able to.

At that moment, their car decided it would not move any further. "Watch out! I'm losing it!" Joffrey screamed and pressed the break hard. They hit the low stone wall next to the canal and stopped. Sandor got out immediately and saw one of their tyres was pierced. A second man, firing, when we were turning, he assumed. It was only good that the boy managed to stop before they fell in water or worse. But they were still way too close to the green fire for his liking.

"Everyone out!" Sandor yelled again. Both of his charges were petrified, so he pulled Sansa out first and returned to get the little shit too. He didn't want dead children on his team, obnoxious or not. There was a small bridge across the canal, close to where the car gave up on them. Behind, their pursuers caught up and they were trying to use a fire extinguisher on the cursed fire. A man gasped with pain. As was to be expected, traditional fire fighting methods would not work on stuff provided by Varys. It won't last though, he knew. They would find a way to put it out, or to cross, and very soon they would be upon them, two of them at least, if he made his math well. Two armed men, and perhaps the third one, driving.

He remembered Joffrey's gallantry when the evening began, and thought he could use some of it too. Without thinking, he lifted the girl off the ground and took one of her shoes.

"What-?" she started when he put her back down, and he shushed her in his most polite tone, hoping she would stop asking questions and just obey.

"Mr Baratheon here will help you out now, that's what the really good agents do, they help the ladies, understood?"

She had the grace to nod.

"But where-?" it was Joffrey's turn to start.

"Right here," Sandor said and pushed him into the canal. "Under the bridge." Joffrey waddled in the shadow of the small stone construction above him, too cold or too shocked to protest. Sandor didn't care. The Hound knew that the little shit with his military training must have at least figured that the gentlemen who were after them had guns. At the same time he fervently hoped that Sansa didn't quite understand why the trash exploded and that the reason was that people were actually shooting at them. He didn't think anyone has ever fired at her before, and the last thing he wanted was a hysterical woman on his hands.

"Miss Stark," he said, nervous to get going. "Go to Joffrey, will you?" He almost said please, but thought better about it. He could not adapt all that much to the presence of a lady.

She lowered herself graciously into the cold stinky water and glided under the bridge with the same ease she had when she walked in the ballroom, shadowing other ladies with her poise and manners. It was a wise choice. The water was waist deep and that way she would remain significantly drier than Joffrey.

Sandor ran over the bridge and left one flat female shoe at its end. Visible, but not too obvious. Natural, it has to look natural. On the other side, he hid in the shadow of a porch leading to another damn palace, its ornate windows dark in the wee hours of the morning.

He didn't wait for long.

There were two of them, their steps echoing on the stones so loud that he couldn't miss it even if he were not who he was. They carried a gun each, and they moved with a confidence of a vulture looking after their prey. Except that, in the night, the Hound was the predator, lurking, and they were about to be hunted like deer.

Before they would pass him, he lunged and slammed one of them into another, grabbing his gun while he was still on the move. Proficiently, he shot the man he pushed away to the shoulder and when he slumped over his companion, he aimed for his partner's shoulder. The other man was left handed so he aimed left. He felt a sharp pain in his leg and did his best to ignore it. In the next moment, the second man was down too. The street was silent and empty. The water rustled lazily in the canal.

Good, he thought.

They would both live, but they wouldn't run, or walk, any time soon. And the alley was entirely too dark for anyone to find them before morning hours. Maybe a waste truck would pass at dawn and rescue them if they were very very lucky.

"Brune?" he tried. The man who went down first reacted to the name.

"Give my warm regards to your boss, whoever that is," the Hound said, walking away with two guns. It made him feel way better.

The girl and Joff were in the canal, almost in each other's arms. Not that he could blame them, with the night's chill. He could see that the boy was sweet talking Sansa. He supposed that it was marginally better than scaring her.

"Get out," he said gruffly. "Behind me, Mister agent, Miss Stark." He pulled them out again because they went painstakingly slow. Why is it that they can't move any faster of their own accord? His anger flared and he fought to push it down.

The green ungodly fire he made lessened, burning at some places, smouldering on others. There was a leather jacket over a part of it, that the good men who fired at them used to pass. He jumped over it all, superstitious, not willing to put his shoes in churning embers. Joffrey, on the contrary, walked through it without any problem. Sandor felt unmanned, but he could not help himself. Fire was not his thing.

The van was parked at the beginning of the alley, the driver nowhere to be seen. He motioned to Joff to take the driver's seat and waited in a shadow of a door post carved as a half naked woman, several steps behind. As soon as Joffrey got in, the driver

emerged from the back of the van, and wrapped something, a wire, perhaps, around Joff's elegant rich throat.

"Hel..p.." Joff begged through clenched teeth.

For a second Sandor was afraid he would not have a clear line of shot to the third enemy, but the man proved himself too eager to get to Joffrey. His head popped up above his would be victim. Soon, his obviously too small brains were all over the driver's seat. It wasn't pretty, but it was necessary. Any other part of the man's body the Hound would've aimed at, or a moment of waiting, and he may have had to explain to Stannis why his precious nephew died on his watch.

That was that. End of my working hours for today, he thought.

"They wanted to kill us," Joffrey complained, incredulous. "Why would they want to do that?"

"What did you think this was when uncle Stannis brought you?" Sandor snarled. "A video game?"

He nearly got to the car, ignoring the green look on Joffrey's face, partially due to his choking experience, and also to the human remains on the back of the seat he now occupied. Wrenching the passenger door open, he figured there was something wrong.

Sansa was not there.

Was Brune able to walk back that fast?

His heart was in his throat when he leapt back. He was relieved and terribly pissed at the same time when he saw her standing still behind the smouldering fire. She was pretty, paralysed and utterly unable to cross.

"You took my shoe," she reproached him, and, naturally, excused herself again. "I'm sorry. I just can't jump that far. I'll burn my foot."

He didn't know what got into him.

He padded through the still warm embers, not once but twice. The second time he carried a pile of wet female misery through them, and all the way to the fire brigade van, when she could have just as well walked the rest of the way. The sweet smelling scent of her filled his senses and calmed him like a drug you'd normally need prescription for. He put her down next to the half naked statue.

"I'll be right back," he said,

"I can walk," she offered.

"Wait," he insisted, not bothering to check if she did. He was not accustomed to repeat his commands to the people he worked with.

When he was satisfied that the back space of the van was devoid of firemen, true or false, he returned for her, and carried her the last steps of their short way. He lowered her on a bench in the back, as carefully as he could. Since he picked her up, he was trying and failing miserably not to enjoy the experience. He felt pathetic and tired.

"Best don't look in front," he told her. She looked puzzled.

"The previous owner made a mess of his car," he tried to explain. "Sleep if you can. I'll wake you up when we are somewhere."

"Thank you," she said, trying her best not to shiver. Obediently, stubbornly, she turned her back to Joffrey and to the bleeding corpse behind him. He wondered if she had seen it at all, or if she had chosen not to by the force of her will.

Good girl, he admired her, closing the back door.

Sandor Clegane slumped on the passenger seat and glanced at the driver's seat. The key was left in the ignition. Amateur, he thought of a man whose skull now decorated the van.

It was only when Joff started the engine that he dared look at his leg. The muscle tissue was bleeding under the knee. He was lucky he walked that far, on sheer adrenaline, more likely than not. A stab wound, he realized. Brune must have had a knife at hand. First aid kit was under every seat of Varys' cars, rules of service, number this and that, he always forgot which one, but there was none in the vehicle they were in now. He could stop the bleeding with his tie, more or less, but that was about it. The gash was not shallow enough and it did not look promising.

As it seemed, he was going to need a doctor before Sansa and he would need a priest. The sham marriage would have to wait for another day.

Chapter Text

As an unknown man carried her away, Sansa Stark decided there were things about spying she might have difficulties getting used to.

First there was the glamour of the evening in a real palace, the ball hosted by a real prince and the dancing, oh the dancing!

It all gave way to the clammy coldness of the night. And to the two men backhanding her when she got out of the lady's room the second time.

Her head hurt tremendously from the blows. She wondered where the kind man at the door was when she needed his help. An odd thing crossed her mind: she should have waited for Mr Clegane before going to the toilet again. His sullen presence would have most likely chased away the attackers. An icy cloth was being stuck in her mouth. She managed to close her lips just on time not to swallow what was in it, not appreciating the smell of it in the least. She was most unwilling to see if the taste matched the unsavoury odour.

"Good job, Brune," a deep voice, sharp like a whip, said to the man carrying her over his strong shoulder. Brune, for his part did not say a thing. "She did not have a chance to talk to our dear friend Nymeria..."

Sansa's sense of orientation was never the best and she had no idea where they took her except that it wasn't far. They closed her in a cramped space and talked more freely, as if she could not hear them.

"And we thought we'd have to wait for the party near Vicenza to get our hands on her..." the man whose name she didn't know continued talking. "Her father will pay well for her..."

The man called Brune was of a slightly different opinion. "I wouldn't think that the boss cares much whether her father lives... or dies."

"No?" the first man said in a somewhat slippery voice, losing the sharp edge it had before. Suddenly it sounded as if she had heard it before. Where? she wondered. "We'll see about that..." the man concluded brusquely, and the edge was back in his words.

Do they mean... my father? Why would anyone want my father to... die? Sansa didn't understand.

She was left alone with dark thoughts and more riddles. So it was Lady Nymeria, our contact, she pondered. Mr Clegane was right.

When a pair of strong arms grabbed her again, Sansa Stark was tremendously angry. It was not a feeling a well educated young woman should have, and her mother would be most displeased, but she could not help it at all.

Boldness took her and when she could see again, she counter-attacked.

And faced the sneer on Mr Clegane's face with utmost embarrassment. Maybe she was stupid after all.

The night continued in an emerald coloured haze. Mr Clegane was very rude as usual. She gave him a match and the street burned green. They had to leave the car and she was instructed to go to the canal with charming Mr Baratheon... Joffrey, she corrected herself.

Standing in water turned to be quite awful. Not romantic at all, as the waterways of Venice had always looked to her on pictures.

"Don't fret, my dear," Joffrey told her under the bridge, all self-assuredness and calm, as if their position were a most natural thing to suffer on a secret mission. "Mr Clegane will deal with this little problem for me, and then we will have the night all for ourselves."

Sansa was at loss for words. Could it mean that he wanted to...? He was very handsome, but Sansa wasn't that kind of girl. At least he should invite her for a date if he was interested in a relationship. In plain daylight for a start would be nice. Probably he was just making a joke out of her, as most of the good looking guys did. When they were not after her father's money, that is.

So she was relieved when Joffrey left her, walked in front of Mr Clegane, and took the lead of the action. As the most important agent should do, Sansa guessed. Her joy was short lasting.

Before she knew it, she was alone again, standing behind a fire. She almost started crying.

They left me, she thought. What will I tell Mr Varys? How will I tell Jon that I failed so miserably after his recommendation?

Then, Mr Clegane was back. She complained petulantly about missing the shoe, and couldn't quite believe when he took her in his arms. With eyes wide open, she could feel clearly how they were much larger than those of Brune, her kidnapper, and she wondered how she could have ever mistaken one for another...

He came back for me... she thought. Why has he come back for me?

Joffrey must have sent him, she deduced, and she didn't know why that thought made her sad.

Then, Mr Clegane did all he could to spare her the sight of the dead man in the van. Joffrey didn't even look at Sansa, struggling with the new steering wheel and driving console of a larger vehicle, as if she were not in existence. Confirming her expectations that he didn't like her at all. Sansa sighed. Joffrey must have dealt with this man, she realized then, and she shuddered. That's what the real secret agents do on a mission, you stupid, Arya's voice spoke in her head. They kill.

Perhaps it was not the best idea to accept Jon's call. A career at the university looked much more appearing than it ever did before. Except that it seemed too late to turn back in any face saving way.

Sansa could deal with the encrypted conversations, surreptitious whispers and double meanings, with conspiracies discussed and plotted over luxurious dinner tables. She could deal with an attempt to hack a network of an institution, and conduct an action to reject it, as a boring fly or a disease transmitting mosquito ready to sting. But she didn't think she could ever, ever kill a human being. In self-defence or not. Even if the person were truly evil.

I'll wake you up when we get somewhere, she remembered Mr Clegane's parting words and the warm timbre of his voice. Her father could speak like that, with care, but Mr Clegane was not related to her. She definitely liked his voice when he did not mock her. Almost, almost better than Joffrey's. She tried to imagine what he would look like if he were handsome or at least if he had both halves of his face intact. Her fantasy did not work. If he were good looking then he wouldn't be Mr Clegane, she concluded, unable to determine if that was a good or a bad thing.

I'll come for you when we get somewhere, she altered the meaning of his words in her memory to sound more appealing.

She wished he came for her to carry her over the fire of his own free will, not knowing why that would make any difference at all.

Somewhere was not very far away.

Somewhere was a half empty parking lot beside a busy highway, stretching in front and behind of a rather untidy restaurant and a small shop, all in one, proudly occupying a plot of hole plagued asphalt right after a gas station.

Sansa opened the large back door of the van herself as soon as they stopped. Her wrist hurt from the effort, but she was decided not to show female weakness again so soon. So she pulled the passenger door open as well, in a very unwomanly gesture. She could be strong. Her hand could not hurt more than it did already. Mr Clegane was trying to scramble up with difficulty. The place where he'd been seated was too small for his legs, and there seemed to be something wrong with one of them.

In a flash, lasting no more than a second of real time, her thoughts sailed rapidly back to what she did earlier that evening. When she had placed a chaste kiss to Mr Clegane's scarred cheek in front of Prince Doran, she told herself a real fiancee would do it with no hesitation. It still took her a minute then to gather her courage. She needed to imagine his scars were like chips and electronic circuits, inanimate objects of diversified surface, with no life of their own, and therefore safe, dry, not repulsive to touch. The relative dryness of it was the only part in which reality had corresponded to her imagination.

Mr Clegane had been positively shocked, and the dead skin had moved under Sansa's lips with a queer life of its own. Sansa had to try hard to forget the disturbing experience, until Prince Doran named Mr Clegane a murderer. Digesting that piece of news and maintaining the composure required by the occasion proved to be a daunting task, shadowing all other sensations.

"I spoke with lady..." he started informing her now, still half seated.

"-Yes, Lady Ermesande was most charming," Sansa saw danger, the kind she'd been taught to recognise. It was rude to interrupt, but it had to do be done. And there was only one way that occurred to her to prevent him from further talking. His good cheek was turned toward her so it was going to be easier than before.

Later on, she never knew if it was due to the movement of her head or of his own. By accident, her lips ended on his, and not on either of his cheeks. There was no dryness this time. There was hunger and welcoming warmth stemming from him, in stark contrast with the wet burden of the dress on the lower part of her body.

It took her much more than a minute to find the presence of the mind. She reached down with her right hand and unplugged the GPS. Her wrist throbbed. She was right. It had been connected all the time, even if Joffrey didn't use it to navigate to wherever somewhere was.

When she did that, Mr Clegane immediately ended their kiss. He gave her a cold stare, as if he weren't responding to it a moment earlier. Mr Baratheon whistled from the driver's seat. "Splendid, Miss Stark," he said. "I would never think of doing that as a distraction."

"I'm a moron," Mr Clegane stated, as if it were the god-given truth. "We should have thrown the damn thing through the window before we departed. However," he looked at Sansa with an open question in his dark grey eyes, "they know where we are now, but there's no way they could have heard what I was about to say, is there?"

"Normally, no," Sansa explained to the best of her knowledge. "But very very theoretically," she continued, "if the network is strong enough, and this... Tom Tom has been connected to it all the time, and if they can hack into the Tom Tom network, it's not entirely impossible that someone could have developed an application to hear us. Similar applications already exist for mobile phones, it's just that they are illegal." Abashed, she stopped talking. She could see on Joffrey's face that she was upsetting him by what she just said. It was the kind of talk that didn't fit a girl, she knew. It was driving men away.

Mr Clegane was still staring at her.

"Good job," he said in the end. "Let's move on. We have to find another transport out of here." He gave a good look to the few cars and trucks parked around them.

He doesn't mean stealing a car, does he? Sansa thought, thoroughly appalled at the idea that fighting on the side of the law implied breaking it.

"I don't know about the two of you lovebirds," Joffrey said, snickering, giving Sansa a look as if she were a slut, and a cheap one, at that. "But I'm kind of cold. Since the bad guys know where we are, I can just as well use my father's card and get myself a new T-shirt. They sell souvenirs at all gas stations around here."

Sansa considered her state of undress: a torn sleeve, the scarf... lost, back nearly naked, her bra out of place, the shape of her breasts and nipples clearly visible through the wrinkled damp blue fabric. A wet mass of folds pooled around her legs as a siren's tail and not a gown. They were lucky that the end of summer was rather warm, or she would be sick by now.

She dared a glance at her companions. Joffrey didn't fare any better: only his golden hair was still reasonably dry. Because the canal was shallow or because it dried when driving. It didn't matter. Mr Clegane's face betrayed no expression. His suit was dry and his tie was missing.

"Mr Baratheon," Sansa said with a frosty tone, "would you mind purchasing a T-shirt and maybe a pair of shorts for me, if they have something in my size over here? I would be happy to reimburse you later on..."

Her formal address worked miracles on Joffrey.

"Naturally, my dear," a friendly grin replaced an ugly one, and he offered her his arm.

He may still like me, Sansa hoped.

Several minutes later both Joffrey and Sansa wore extra large white tourist T-shirts, affirming they loved Venice, and a pair of navy blue shorts each. Sansa didn't look, but she surely felt much better. In her distress, she had completely forgotten about Mr Clegane.

They found him standing at the bar, in a company of two more men. The waiter was young and black-haired. The name tag on his striped shirt said "Luwin". He looked at Sansa's bare legs with unhidden admiration, immediately lowering his eyes when Mr Clegane gestured wildly at Sansa and Joffrey to join him. The second man standing was young, a bit older than Joffrey, and with the same golden curls on his head. He looked very serious.

The smell of coffee was in the air, announcing the arrival of the morning.

"I'm telling you," Luwin said, or rather continued saying what he already started. He waved his arms in a broad, friendly movement. "My grandfather was a famous barber. It was the same as doctor in the old times. It will cost you less than a capuccino your friend here is having. It will be faster than a doctor too. And more quiet if you know what I mean."

"You will keep quiet if you wish you live," Mr Clegane said with his characteristic lack of civility. "Speed is all I require for the moment."

"This way," Luwin asked Mr Clegane to follow him in the room behind the bar. with the sign "private" attached to the yellow wooden door.

"Wait here," Mr Clegane rattled a command at both of them. It almost sounded like a dog barking. Sansa had an uncanny feeling he'd been looking at her in an entirely different way than he did at Mr Baratheon. Unconsciously, she put both arms over her chest, and was relieved to grab a dry T-shirt instead of a damp ruined dress revealing more than it should. She wanted to apologise, but there was no reason to, so she stayed quiet.

"Cousin Lancel," Joffrey said stiffly to the man who looked like his older twin. "What brings you to Italy?"

"The Lord works in mysterious ways," the young man said with a sad knowledgeable smile.

There was a large excellent smelling coffee topped with milk foam in front of him, and he was adding some sugar to it when he spoke. Sansa was of a mind to order a capuccino as well if they had some time, and if Joffrey would be so kind to pay for it too. Her handbag and all her cash and cards were most likely still in a lady's room in Venice. Bringing her eyes from the coffee cup to cousin Lancel drinking it, she greeted him politely and introduced herself.

"My name is Sansa Stark. Please to meet you, Mr Lancel."

"Father Lancel Lannister," he corrected her.

Cousin Lancel wore a long black robe with a white collar of a catholic priest.

Chapter Text

Cars like this one should not be used for spying, Sansa considered, uncomfortable, as they were being driven in a very old model of Fiat Cinquecento in the direction of Padua. And not only because of its inelegant colour.

The small bright yellow car was kind of cute in itself, but the closeness of Mr Clegane was barely supportable. He stank of strong liquor, much more than he did of wine during dinner, and his mood was getting more sour than his smell with every passing mile. Sansa has never heard so many curses in so short a time. They have been driving for less than an hour. His too long legs were squeezed between Sansa, the driver's seat and the door, one of them stinking worse than his mouth did. She wondered how that happened.

Sansa had to lean to the door on her side to avoid touching any more of his body than was absolutely necessary. And even the unavoidable part of it was already way too much for her liking. He was invading her personal space and she hoped that they would arrive soon.

Father Lancel was driving.

"They are getting married, and I will act both as her father and as the best man," Joffrey informed him from a passenger seat as if he told a good joke. "Isn't that so, my dear?" he asked Sansa, squashed in the back.

"It's true, Father," Sansa forced a reply, pressing her cheek harder into the cold glass.

"No doubt, it is the will of the Lord," Father Lancel said meekly. A few wisps of sand coloured hair hovered disobediently over his head. That was the only vivid part of him. He drove as he spoke, as an old man, slow and unbearably calm. It was a welcome change from Joffrey's style of driving. At least, Sansa was able to stick to her window without falling on Mr Clegane.

She remembered the unthinkable exit they made from the highway restaurant. They all climbed out through the window of the men's room in the back and headed to Father Lancel's car. The priest saw fit to offer a piece of advice to the serving guy, Luwin, before they left. "If I were you, son," he said with an aged voice that didn't belong to his young handsome face, "I would send all the guests away and hide under the counter for the next few hours. You will know when it is safe to go out."

"Aren't they so sweet, Father?" Joffrey continued. "Made for each other."

Every word was an open wound in Sansa's pride. She didn't want to be mistaken for Mr Clegane's girlfriend when they were not strictly working, and a car ride from Venice to Padua did not look like a professional occasion at all. The expression she wore must have been horrible because Mr Clegane snapped.

"Stop!"he bellowed.

"We're almost there," Father Lancel objected, and, to Sansa's surprise, addressed Mr Clegane by his first name. "Sandor, you told me we were in a hurry when you told me to warn Mr Luwin-"

"Five minutes won't kill any of us, I hope," Mr Clegane said curtly, and the priest obeyed.

They were on the normal road now. The highway was left behind and they were approaching the city of Padua, cruising among lines and lines of low concrete buildings of companies and shops on the outskirts of the town. It was too early and everything was still closed. They stopped on a patch of clay coloured soil between a business selling car parts and another one advertising kitchens and bathrooms. Between those two plain commercial establishments loomed a tiny portion of a green field meeting the very light grey blue of the sky in a distance. Two birches still grew on the small plot of unused grounds. Sansa tried to focus on the surviving nature, and not on the ugliness of the urban landscape around them, or on the huge man glaring at her. Joffrey and Lancel stayed in the car. There was no technology, not even a radio, in the Cinquecento, and outside, where Sansa faced Sandor even less so.

It was a piece of no one's land where nobody could hear them.

"I spoke to Lady Nym," he said without any introduction or manners. "We should be looking for some flora and fauna at the coming party if she wasn't feeding me bullshit. Fruit or eggs she said. It sounded stupid to me, like a food menu, but I think it's best you know."

"What do you think we're looking for in general?" Sansa dared a question. The paperwork said nothing about their goal and she wondered what he thought.

"Missiles, new weapons or weapons systems," Mr Clegane said after a while. "Or Vayrs wouldn't send me. Firepower is everything."

"Why not a computer virus or a Trojan? Everything is digital today. And digital can be vulnerable," she had to contradict him. "If Jon asked me, I mean. He could have gone himself if it were about weapons."

"I doubt Jon would look like a very convincing wife of mine to the Martells," Mr Clegane snorted, dismissing her argument as men mostly did.

"The palace has a garden full of rare plants," Sansa said. "Some of them will bear fruit."

"And Prince Doran traditionally stages an exhibition of ancient weaponry and of wild life for his guests, which could include stuffed birds for all I know," he said. "I can read too," he added as if she must have doubted this capacity of his.

"Birds lay eggs," she completed his initial thought.

Sansa didn't understand why Sandor dragged her out of the car
so that the others would not witness their conversation. What he told her, seemed innocent enough to be known in public. And surely Joffrey, the top agent, knew all about it anyway.

"Shouldn't we... somehow compensate, I mean, pay Father Lancel for abusing his good will and his vehicle?" she asked about another thing that was heavy on her mind. Sansa was always fair to people. She learned it from her father.

"Lancel Lannister is not here by chance, Miss Stark," Mr Clegane explained. "Varys must have sent him over. I can assure you that Kevan Lannister, brother of Tywin Lannister, would never allow his eldest son to become a priest. The family made a fortune in dog food industry and someone has to inherit it."

"Does he also work for the-" Sansa stopped in the middle of the next question she wanted to ask. She didn't know the name of the service she herself was now working for. Or if it had one at all. Spook organisations could be nameless for all she knew.

"Not as far as I know," Mr Clegane said, trying to be patient, she noticed. "But two of his cousins are. Cousin Jaime, and well, Joffrey here, who is actually more of a nephew if I understand the family tree correctly. So it was not too difficult to recruit Lancel for this simple task of performing a false marriage. It has to be someone Prince Doran doesn't know, and he looks silly enough to me to be a real priest."

"Why are we talking here, like this, in the middle of nowhere?" she asked in the end, pointing at the car equipment shop and the slender birches behind.

"Look," he said, and he looked shy for a moment. It fitted him. "I don't want this any more than you do. Could you just stop looking at me as if I murdered your mother? I didn't, you know. Let's just get over with this bloody marriage arrangement, shall we? Than we can get this job done and you can go home, right?"

"Right," Sansa said, wondering why he didn't say "we can go home". Wasn't he going home too when the job was done? Did he have a home? Suddenly, she became aware she had been giving him ugly stares since they got in the Cinquecento and she noticed the stench. She must have been the cause of his worsening mood. "I'm sor-"

"-Stop apologising!" he said. "Please," he added as an afterthought, to her surprise. Mr Clegane must have had a mother too, and she has taught him some manners, at least. "I don't beat women," he stated. "And I won't beat you. No matter how charming I might look."

Sansa stared at his mouth and sniffed.

"Not even in my cups," he added for good measure.

"Okay," she said. "Deal." She gave him a hand.

He shook it way milder than he did on Piazza San Marco. And surprised her again with a gentlemanly gesture she would rather expect from Joffrey, if she didn't scare him away with her knowledge. Sandor Clegane kept her hand in his, brought her to his peculiar semi-ruined lips and kissed it. Devoured it, a thought came unbidden to Sansa.

Sansa was about to open her mouth to ask why, when she noticed the false Father Lancel standing behind them, watching them.

She didn't quite understand why they had to put up a show for the false priest. Better safe than sorry, she concluded, supposing what he did was better than kissing her on her mouth again.

Yet, a part of her regretted that he did not. In the open air, he smelled better.

You are so pathetic, Sansa, she told herself. When you can't have a normal good looking guy, you get attracted to an ugly monster.

Being single certainly took its toll, Sansa thought. Maybe she should have taken Jon's second call and allowed him to present her to this friend of his, Theon. Maybe that would have worked.

Father Lancel coughed. "Could we please go now?" he said. "I have a morning mass at 6 am and some people waiting for me."

"I always wanted to marry early in the morning," Sansa accepted the game and gave Mr Clegane a genuine smile. Purposefully, she walked into him, and gently placed her head on his broad chest, placing both arms around his neck. The top of her head came a bit above to where the knot of his tie should have been if he still wore one. He was not the man she would marry, but maybe he was a person she could work with, she realized. Two hands caught her carefully on the lower part of her back, clumsily responding to her own attempt of embrace.

Back in Cinquecento, the space seemed less cramped. Joffrey fell asleep, so he was not making any more comments.

They trotted through the greyness of the morning for another fifteen minutes, until they arrived in front of the building which looked like a small family house in the suburbs of Padua. Foundations of another larger building stood behind it. amidst new blocks of flats. They were actually more of a deep hole in the ground, when Sansa took a better look.

"It takes time," Lancel Lannister complained. "We build exclusively from the gifts of the faithful. The times are difficult so money doesn't come easy if you know what I mean. Penitence doesn't generate funds."

No, Sansa thought, dog food industry does.

"I thought there were enough churches around here," Mr Clegane said flatly.

Sansa thought Varys was really thorough in his actions, what with a semblance of a church being built just to maintain their cover! It must have cost lots of money to simulate a thing like that. Jon told her the man was like a wizard who worked miracles but until now she thought he was only joking.

"Never mind, never mind, come in!" Lancel said. "I have all we need inside, an altar, a cross, and the light of the Lord shining above it. Even two witnesses if I'm not wrong!"

Sandor gave Joffrey a manly push. "Wake up, James," he said. "Time to bring me my bride."

It was exactly as Sansa never imagined her wedding to be, true or false.

They were in a small living room devoid of furniture. A wooden table was placed as an altar in the back, covered with a plain white tablecloth. Four wobbly legs protruded under the pale fabric, betraying the table for what it was. A book, the Bible, she presumed, lay on top of it. Or maybe it was a cookbook as they weren't in a real church. A wooden cross hung on the wall behind the altar, and a simple metal holder with a red light within hung above the middle of the room, on the place where a lamp would normally be. There was a vase with three orange lilies on one side. Semi-withered, the flowers have seen better days. There were three wooden benches, four windows and nothing else.

Two ladies were the only persons seated in the improvised church.

"Aunt Selyse, what a surprise!" Joffrey approached the older one in his most charming way, stifling a deep yawn. "And Shireen, lovely as always!" he greeted the younger woman who could have been Selyse's daughter, and a few years younger than Sansa.

Shireen was not lovely, Sansa noticed. She must have suffered an accident or a disease. A large part of her face and neck was covered in bandages.

"We are on the pilgrimage to Rome," aunt Selyse said. "Prayers are the only thing that can help Shireen now. We came to visit Lancel when your father, my brother-in-law Robert informed us of his whereabouts. We hoped Lancel would join us in our prayers."

"As I most certainly will," Lancel said. "I regret that you had to take the taxi all the way here. I was about to pick you up at the airport but my car broke down. I was lucky to find a mechanic last night, Mr Luwin, on the road... Or I wouldn't be here on time."

"Mechanic?" Mr Clegane asked, sounding murderous. He gave a glance at one of his legs and tried to move it around. No one answered his question.

Shireen kept quiet, her hands folded. She gazed at the cross with something like hope in her eyes.

"Give my love to uncle Stannis when you talk to him, will you?" Joffrey said, and remembered Sansa. "If you would excuse me..."

Sansa was still standing at the house door, and Mr Clegane already waited in front where a bridegroom should stand. The altar table could barely be seen from behind now because of Mr Clegane's large body, and a huge shadow it cast. There were no candles, or lights of any kind, only diffuse grey and bluish daylight pouring in through the dusty windows and the still open door. Like the light in the old paintings from Tuscany, Sansa dreamed, finding beauty where there was none. It made things easier for her.

"Come on, Miss Stark," Joffrey said. "Aren't you delighted to marry Mr Clegane here? Isn't he a young girl's fantasy?" He chuckled and he looked terribly handsome in his indifference.

"Of course I am," she said and tried to look happy.

It was all so unattractive, and she was with unknown people. Her family was away and she was alone. There was only Joffrey, his aunt with big ears, and her poor sick daughter. At least cousin Lancel seemed kind enough. For a second she imagined her marriage was real. The idea gave her shivers.

This is pretence, she told herself, it has to happen if Prince Doran asks about the ceremony. Or if he has spies on his own which have followed us.

In TV shows spies were everywhere and somehow they knew everything. Sansa was only starting to learn how it was in real life.

She didn't listen to Lancel Lannister as he spoke. She barely registered the last words of what he was saying. "Therefore, what god has joined together, let no one separate..."

Sansa almost turned to leave, eager to be done with the humiliating experience.

"You forgot the most important part, cousin," Joffrey had to say. Ever since Sansa unplugged the TomTom in the fire brigade van he was unpleasant to her. Or maybe he was horrible by nature all the time but she was too late in noticing it.

"Of course, of course," Father Lancel was purple as if the suggestion reminded him of his own sins. "The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak," he muttered. "But it's meant to be so in a marriage, isn't it? If they are married, then the weakness of the flesh is not a bad thing, no... Sandor, you may kiss the bride..."

Mr Clegane placed his huge hands on her shoulders. She expected a chaste kiss, but it was not to be. Very fast, as if he were afraid of the eyes watching them, her partner gave her a real kiss, tasting her mouth inside out in one rapid go. No one had kissed her quite like that. It was most disturbing. Then, he looked at her, expecting something from her, dark eyes inscrutable.

He had to do it, she told herself. He didn't want to do it, he didn't want to do it, he had to do it, she had to repeat it many times in her head to believe it.

I wanted him to do it, her own thought caught her by surprise. She wished the ground to open under her feet and swallow her. Maybe you are a slut. She scorned herself. Only yesterday morning you liked Joffrey. It was not like Sansa Stark to give her affection that easily. It must be the lack of sleep, she concluded. And the shock of having been kidnapped, the veiled threat to her father's life...

She looked at her feet. An awful pair of cheap gas station quality flip-flops stared at her. Bare legs showed goose pimples under navy blue shorts. She thought she heard Mr Clegane sigh. One leg of his trousers was caked in mud, she noticed. She looked up in his eyes and all expectation was gone.

Only cold grey colour remained as though someone had extinguished the light.

Somehow, she wronged him. And all her education was not enough to know how. We should now be heading to Prince Doran's party, she guessed.

She would have five days to find out.

Chapter Text

The Hound's phone rang as soon as the scam ceremony was over. He was glad he remained dry in Venice, or the expensive thing would have been ruined, and he'd have to resort to desperate measures to contact the service.

This way, it was a piece of cake.

"Yes," he answered. Be as brief as possible, the drill words sounded in his head.

"There you are... we wondered," an old frail voice said in the distance. The Hound's blood ran faster picturing the wise man behind it. Aemon was one of the heads of service. He never called unless the situation was dire.

"We found the priest," he stated.

"Good," Aemon rejoiced. "We wondered about that as well."

"We need transport," Sandor said, embarrassed to bother his superior with the technicality, but then again, it was he who called.

"In the third street more or less parallel to the longest façade of the City Hall," Aemon said fast. "There is a shoe shop ran by Mr Stokeworth, I believe you've met him..."

The phone beeped and in less than 60 seconds the conversation was over. You could never be too careful. Sandor Clegane put it back in the inner pocket of his suit jacket. He was tired as hell. He'd love to wear a T-shirt and a pair of jeans. Even the tourist shit Sansa was wearing would be much more comfortable than a half ruined too tight suit he was stuck with. He'd like a shower too. Advanced senses nature saw fit to give him informed him on the height of almost seven feet that his own feet stank badly. And the stab wound bandaged by a local mechanic, who posed as barber's grandson and almost a doctor, didn't smell too good either.

It will hold, it has too, Sandor thought stubbornly. It was not the first nor the last time he suffered a minor injury in his 15 years of service. What doesn't kill you, makes you stronger, his father used to say. Then again, he did get killed in the end. By his own offspring at that. And Sandor had very early had the misfortune to learn that the stupid statement of his father's was more accurate than not.

Lost in his past for a second, he woke to the world where Sansa was holding and examining his phone. She must have snatched it from his pocket without him noticing.

"Nice work," she said, admiring the device.

"Not mine," he said. He'd never take a credit for what he didn't do, like Joffrey. "Have you ever considered a career in pickpocketing... Mrs Clegane?" the desire to snap at her was strong. The only stronger one being the desire to kiss her, whether their cover required it or not. She smelled way too deliciously for his liking, and even if she wore a plastic tablecloth she'd be the best looking woman he had a chance to meet. Or lay your paws on, an inner voice suggested, challenging his rational mind.

"Honey," she told him sweetly and patted his chest while returning his phone in its place. He noticed Stannis's wife staring at them from behind and one more time resisted the urge to kiss Sansa senseless as a response. "Shouldn't we be looking for that transport now?" Sansa continued. "Prince Doran's party starts tomorrow, and the guests are supposed to arrive today. It's not too far away from Padua, but it is too far to walk..."

"Alas," little shit interrupted as usual. "I will not be joining you for your walk, dear friends. Cousin Lancel and me will be accompanying aunt Selyse and cousin Shireen to Rome. Mrs Clegane, you do understand that this is another really important mission. Unlike the party you will be attending. I hope you will enjoy your honey moon, Mr and Mrs Clegane..."

The Hound stole an inquisitive look at Sansa. It irked him that he could read no expression whatsoever on her regularly shaped face most of the time. Joffrey's comments in the past hours must have hurt her feelings, they would have hurt the sensibility of any normal woman.

What if she wasn't a normal woman?

He could bet that she liked his too impulsive kiss after the so called wedding, and that she didn't tremble with fear when he had devoured her hands earlier that morning. She had been shocked, but not in a negative way. Do I have to hide in your bed to get a reaction out of you... Mrs Clegane? He shivered from feeling like a sick fuck. What kind of thoughts were those? It would seem he was not that far off from his brother as he wanted to believe.

"I wish you lots of success in your important task of accompanying ladies, Mr Baratheon. Their honesty surely requires protection from Father Lancel. I heard he had been a very close friend of your mother's," he said cynically instead. His irony was not lost on Joffrey who looked at him with something akin to hatred. It made the Hound's day. Making certain people loathe him was always very satisfying.

"Good-bye... Joffrey," Sansa surprised him by saying in that perfect voice of hers. "It was a pleasure meeting you. We should be going now."

Before he knew it, she was out of the false church door in flip-flops and damn sexy shorts. All he could do was follow her like a good dog.

To his bewilderment and in the same calm manner she used for speaking, Sansa stood at the side of the road and phlegmatically started hitch-hiking.

He'd never get a ride with his face, he knew. He opted for going along with her solution, keeping low profile and pacing up and down ten steps away from her, so that the cars coming would not have him in their line of sight. The second vehicle stopped.

It was a small truck with only two places in front, both occupied, and a pile of sand for construction as a bulk load in the back. Alarmed, Sandor noticed that the hairy man driving was missing a nose. His bald ugly colleague unbuckled the seatbelt and got out. He grabbed Sansa and hissed. Sansa tried to back off, but she could not. To her credit, she didn't scream.

"That's the American, Biter," the driver said with a thrill in his voice.

It was the last thing he said. The Hound still had two guns, and a truck could be driven for a short distance with a broken side window, no problem. Cars got broken in every day anyway. In Italy as in England, it mattered little.

Getting to Biter was more difficult. The man sensibly put Sansa in-between, but the cowardly tactics never stopped the Hound. He visibly dropped the gun he used and leapt towards them, pretending he would use his bare hands to attack. In a second, the Hound had Sansa by the shoulder. Biter caught her neck and she would have screamed then, the Hound could tell, if she wasn't being choked. In the next second he grabbed one of Biter's hands and broke it like a dry bone. Sansa got some air. She waved her arms towards the Hound, and he managed to push her down. Long enough to get the second gun in his hand and finish the job he started.

While he was dragging two fresh corpses to hide them in the pile of sand in the back of the truck, cleaning up as he could, a bit, not too much, he thought, Sansa made good use of the time available to her to daintily throw up her dinner and the cappuccino she had at the gas station. The daisies growing on the side of the road got watered and fertilized, the Hound guessed. When he was done, she climbed on the passenger seat next to him, stiff and proud like the Princess on the Pea. Until they arrived close to the centre of Padua, she didn't say a word.

The Hound was getting more and more impressed with his little wife. Well, little. Nearly as tall as Jaime's new girlfriend. When they were not too far from the centre, judging by the density and the vaguely historic looks of the urban tissue, he opted to abandon the vehicle and walk the last part. The city was waking up. There was smell of coffee, and fresh bread, and people moving in many directions. It turned out Sansa knew how the City Hall looked like and after a bit of asking they found the damn building. With its several superimposing rows of old arches under a high roof, even Sandor Clegane had to admit that it was an impressive construction. The square in front of it was getting busier and busier, just like the streets around it. Sansa sighed.

"I wish I had my purse with me," she said. "I'd like to make a photo of it."

Spontaneously, he offered her his phone. He'd never given it to anyone. He'd never used it for anything else other than purely professional purposes.

"Thank you!" she said, pleased and surprised in equal measure. There goes another way of cracking her armour of formalities, he thought, oddly happy, satisfied to watch her taking all the photographs she wanted with precision he rarely witnessed in a woman. An organised little thing, he thought, that's what she is. Even when she pukes, she does it neatly.

"I'm done," she said. "I emailed them to myself, I hope you don't mind. The communication from this device is untraceable anyway. Your location is hidden and probably all that goes in or out is encrypted in a rather peculiar way. I don't know how exactly it was done without further exploration of your settings, but I'd like to learn."

"Darling," he couldn't help saying. "You can explore all you want once we get to that splendid party"

"Why do you have to be like that?" she complained. "We've already concluded that neither of us wants this. We will just go through with it and go home, right? There's no need to be hateful. Where is that transport of yours?"

"We should go shoe shopping," he said, and her face dropped down.

He understood he had somehow offended her. "What?" he said.

"You disapprove of my choices in that department, don't you?" she asked quietly. "I'm not your doll to dress up as you wish," she affirmed with more stamina.

"Who said anything about that? You could wear a potato bag and still be hot as hell," he said without thinking.

"Oh," she said. "Okay," she squeezed out of her pretty throat, pulsing.

They continued walking to Mr Stokeworth's shop in blessed silence.

"Mr and Mrs Clegane," Bronn Stokeworth greeted them from the porch. The shop itself was well hidden in the shadow of another arched corridor flanking the street. They all looked similar to Sandor Clegane, but the Hound could luckily spot and smell the differences. Or they would be lost before long. Many different models of probably classy female shoes stared at them from the shop window. The stench of leather and rubber was almost unbearable. They all looked the same to the Hound, just like their exaggerated price tags.

"We have no time to exchange pleasantries," the Hound said, wishing to go out as soon as possible. Into something resembling fresh air in a polluted city. "Let's get down to business." The dog needed a run, even if his leg would not allow it for a few days, at least.

"You will be happy to know that all your stuff has been brought from Venice and loaded in the car four blocks from here," Bronn said without hesitation. "Here's the map to find it, and the keys. I have to close the shop and pick up my wife. We are invited as well."

"Could you wait a bit, Mr Stokeworth, please," Sansa said slowly.

Half an hour later they were out of the shop, and Sandor Clegane found himself dragging five boxes of shoes in three large bags, glad for having survived the olfactory onslaught. He was tempted to sniff Sansa from close by to help his recovery. "One pair for each day," Sansa explained. "And you were probably right about my poor choice of footwear. It didn't rise to the occasion."

Mr Stokeworth shouted after them, as an afterthought. "If I were you, I'd not put on the radio before you arrive to Vicenza! Just enjoy your honey moon!"

"We will, Mr Stokeworth, thank you so much," Sansa said.

The car was a new black Mercedes, latest edition, as far as he could tell. It smelled of factory, and nothing else, thank goodness. A laptop in a girly cover was protruding under the back seat. Pink, with purple flowers. A horrible thing, really. Sansa immediately sat in the back, retrieved it and opened it with more enthusiasm than she ever showed towards Sandor Clegane since they met. The Hound wanted to unplug the navigation and squash it, hoping to end his frustration with her as well, but he decided against it. Whoever wanted to find them could just as well go to Prince Doran's party. It wasn't a big secret where they were going. And with some luck nobody would know what car they were driving before they eventually arrived.

Forgetting what Bronn said, he switched on the radio to hear some music as soon as he started a car. The first acceptable tune he found was unfortunately instantly interrupted by a news programme.

He stared forward, ignoring the pain in his cut leg which increased with driving, until a piece of news positively shocked him.

"...Sansa Stark, 25 years old, red hair, blue eyes, American... approximately 1m 80cm tall, travelling in a company of a man well over 2m tall, Sandor Clegane, black hair, prominent facial scars, a convicted criminal from the UK... Miss Stark is wanted for questioning as a suspect in a murder case of Mr Osney Kettleblack, whose head was blown by a bullet inside a fire brigade van... The shooting took place in a restaurant on the motorway near the exit for Venice... Mr Luwin, the owner, survived by hiding under the bar. One of the other guests has been murdered and several badly wounded..."

The Hound switched off the radio.

Someone is after Sansa, he knew. The piece of news was not genuine. Even total amateurs in the police force would not be able to link Sansa to the man he killed in a van in Venice, and not on a bloody motorway. Somebody paid for the announcement and he or she paid well.

So maybe they didn't follow us due to our task. Maybe they just wanted Sansa.

He turned around. Sansa was silent in the back seat, her face covered in tears.

"Anything you wish to tell me?" he asked, trying to sound gentle.

"Look," she said, and pushed the screen of her laptop forward between the seats, so that he could see it without turning back. A sob escaped her and she did her best to silence it fast.

"What?" he snarled.

"My Facebok account," she said, desperate. "Mr Varys and me are now friends. And I have a new profile picture... And a new cover photo... Our... our marriage is announced on the cover... My friends and family are congratulating me.. My mother is a bit furious... My father luckily doesn't have an account..."

He looked at the screen and stared at Sansa's face in a dark blue dress she wore at the ball on her profile. Her hair style was perfect. The beautiful strand of auburn softness falling out of it was missing, revealing that the picture was first taken and than tampered with. The cover was worse. It was the two of them, dancing, rearranged to stand next to each other in front of an old fashioned window frame, as if they were just getting married. The top of the page said: Sansa Stark. And under, in smaller font: married to Sandor Clegane

It was Sandor's turn to sigh. Not again, he thought. "Do you mind clicking on my name there?" he said.

When she did, he confirmed the unavoidable. His dog avatar was gone too, replaced by a dull photograph of him wearing the damn suit. The scars were mercifully blurred and not that visible. He inwardly thanked the service for their kind consideration. It must have been either Jaime or his new girlfriend, the tall ugly one, who redesigned his image to fit the purpose. It was a little bit better than when his cover was rearranged to present him as a water polo champion several years ago.

"Didn't you hear the news?" he tried to ask, cautiously.

"I did," she said. "But I know that already since last night. Someone is after me. And no, I have no idea why if that was your next question. My family is wealthy, but I don't think they'd be that stupid to pay a ransom for me. Quite some kidnapping victims are still killed after the ransom is paid."

The girl was not stupid at all, he realized. And there she was, stuck with a monster in a monstrously black car, heading to meet the monsters Martells invited this year... She still didn't understand how badly someone wanted her and how much they were willing to pay. That's why she has me now, his thoughts went terribly astray one more time.

"Don't worry," he consoled her as he could. "Anyone else comes after you, I will kill them."

Sansa stared at him, speechless, than at her laptop again.

"And you are still more shocked by this Facebook thing?" he had to ask. "It's routine work!" he even bothered to explain. "The service fixed your profile to match the op cover for anyone who may be watching!" he realised he was shouting when it was too late.

"God, I was so stupid!" she exclaimed after seeing his page, pristine and empty as usual. His list of friends was luckily not extended and only the announcement of their marriage and a few pictures from the ball were added.

Sansa returned to her own page and scrolled down fast. "They deleted it, obviously," she concluded, knowingly. "I published a picture of Joffrey and you saying you were my colleagues... That is how Prince Doran knew we were not married! And I am supposed to be good at this electronic shit..."

The Hound laughed happily at her attempt to curse.

Everybody made mistakes. Especially in things people were good at. Sandor Clegane knew that better than anyone.

"What was your profile picture? The one you chose?" he asked, trying to make her feel better, not knowing why that was important to him.

She showed him, digging deep in her photo albums. A sweet yellow head of a lovebird with a few red feathers on top. It was now well hidden in her images folder.

"Little bird," he said. "It goes well with you," he told her after careful consideration. It was the truth.

"What was your profile like?" she asked with caution.

Probably expecting me to snarl at her again, he thought, his bad leg throbbing harder whenever his spirits sank further down. The body and soul really are one thing, the thought came unwanted and unbidden.

"I'll show you some other time," he said. "I'm a bit tired," he added. It was only half a lie. No way he was going to disgust his little false wife by the beast he kept as an avatar. "I should focus on driving."

Chapter Text

The palace of Prince Doran Martell rose peacefully out of the light blue mist amidst flat lands and rather mildly curved hills in the surroundings of Vicenza. The front of an ancient Greek temple with slender Ionic columns burst forward in the middle of the façade. Noble and elegant, Sansa found. It was flanked by two elongated symmetrical wings, lying gently on the ground. They possessed a regular, calm whiteness as if they had grown naturally out of the bowels of the land. Above the columns, in the triangular field of the temple roof, there were no sculptures of pagan gods; there was only a simply designed coat of arms of the House Martell, a spear piercing a sun, all in white stone, missing the bright red and orange colours it should have had, from what Sansa had read in Mr Varys' electronic paperwork.

On top, on the square pedestals above the cornice, evenly spaced along the entire facade, there were statues of Dornish warriors, all of them men with spears, proudly standing. Only in the very middle, looming over the roof of the temple, there was a woman holding a stone sun high above her head. Next to her knelt a figure of a man holding a spear, carved gaze focused on the woman's sculpted face. The warrior Queen Nymeria and Lord Mors Martell, Sansa recited inwardly the names of Prince Doran's famous ancestors and founders of his dynasty.

The long length of the wings resting in the blue-green quiet vastness of the landscape at the end of summer betrayed the building for what it was; a newly built lavish dwelling of the rich, inspired by the ancient designs of villas and palaces in the region of Veneto, something a very wealthy man like Prince Doran Martell could afford. Had it been historical as it tried to look, the wings would have been way shorter and the building more compact and square. All four sides, and not only two, would be perfectly reflecting each other, or at least aiming to do so. And a really old villa most likely could not house fifty married couples Prince Doran invited every year.

The palace had three levels, marked by long lines of rather simple windows. The ones on the ground floor had bars. The ones on the first floor were rectangular, twice as big, and they had pale green shutters. The windows on top had nothing at all, being just a procession of solitary square openings, dark holes contrasting the gleam of diffused sunlight on immaculately white stone panels covering the walls. Had the palace been ancient, there would have been brick underneath. This way, Sansa suspected there was only concrete and steel.

She still admired the building and felt a girlish excitement about spending five days in it. Old or new, it was still a beautiful house. The photographs and plans Sansa had studied did not do it justice. Standing next to her, Mr Clegane gave a look of yearning to the black car, which was being taken away by the expedite and discreet staff of the Martells, only to be returned five days later when they would depart. Stairs led to the temple looking entrance on each side.

The same kind man who welcomed them in Venice instructed them how to find their rooms later on, on the first floor and on the very end of the right hand side of the palace. He wore a uniform of sorts, a black and white doublet, and red and orange tights ending in high brown boots. There was a long thin sword on his hip. Sansa wondered if the purpose of it was purely decoration. The man smiled at her and handed her a leaflet with the programme of the festivities. It contained the plan of the palace, way less detailed than what Mr Varys had provided.

Sansa already knew that the ground floor was occupied by kitchens and storage rooms and that the guests would be staying on the first floor, on both sides of the main living area behind the entrance where most of the party events would be held. The leaflet was kindly warning the guests not to venture to the second floor just yet because the collections of Prince Doran, of ancient weaponry and rare birds, were about to be moved in, and the exposition was not yet ready. It was to be opened on the third day.

They had no time to change before the welcoming reception, and Sansa was more than glad she did it in the car. Her hand luggage was mercifully dropped on the back seat by whoever collected it in Venice together with her computer. She wore a smart black cocktail dress, following the shape of her body until just under her knees, with tight short sleeves and an extremely small circular opening under her neck. It was so simple that it required no jewellery but she still opted for a simple silver chain, a gift from her father. One pair of new black shoes with high polished heels fitted it perfectly. She was suddenly glad for her almost swim in the canal. Unintentionally, it had washed some of the night's sweat away. She took care of the rest using a bottle of water she always carried and some of her cosmetics. She tied her hair with a simple blue ribbon after combing it, so that she wouldn't have to wear it fully down which might be inappropriate for the occasion. It was the best that could have been done on the move. Mr Clegane had turned silent after their odd conversation and she had been glad for it. She had no idea what to make of his offer to kill for her. It sounded like something her sister could find romantic, but it didn't have much appeal for Sansa.

When they arrived, her partner swiftly produced a new tie from the trunk, applied some deodorant on most critical places, tossed his hair over his scars by one huge hand and that was all.

Hand in hand, they stepped in the large luminous loggia behind the entrance, facing the famous Water Gardens behind the palace. Two shorter and lower wings continued the palace on the back side. Opposite the main building there was a wall serving to enclose the complex to the outside world. The left wing in the back contained the apartments of the Martells. It was a modern structure, windowless on the outside and completely built of glass on the inside so that Prince Doran could feel immersed in the watery splendour of his back yard even behind locked doors. In straight line from the loggia, there were three large circular fountains. All around them, there were a dozen lesser pools, a square, a star, a flower and many more, mostly with mythical creatures spurting water in their middle. Flowers and grass filled the empty spaces in-between in regular intervals. The second wing in the back contained a parking lot which should have been stables in the old times. It's roof was overgrown with clematis and ivy, to mask the functionality of what it was. On its wall toward the garden there was a series of small semi-enclosed spaces around various fountains. The walls of those mini-chambers in the open air were divided and adorned by pilasters where imaginary monsters stretched their heads, limbs and tails. A chimaera, a centaur, a griffin, a serpent, a seven headed dragon and many more, all made out of ceramic tiles, blue figures on stark white background.

Sansa longed to take a walk in the garden, which she had found particularly beautiful in pictures. Instead, they ended having a drink with Prince Doran Martell in person. Half of the guests have already arrived and Sansa thought that considering the dislike he has shown for Mr Clegane, his presence in their company was most unusual.

"My, my," the prince rose from a wheelchair with difficulty, and approached them leaning on a walking stick. "Mr and Mrs Clegane. I can imagine no better shield from boring company." He glanced at Mr and Mrs Stokeworth he had just left behind. Lollys Stokeworth waved a pudgy hand toward the prince. A silly female smile accompanied the gesture. Bronn Stokeworth hugged his wife and shrugged as if he were trying to apologise for any annoyance she may have caused. "The truth be told, the presence of my dear brother and his mistress would shield me even better. Most unfortunately, he missed his flight," the prince explained himself further while all three of them picked a glass of white wine from a tray being walked around by a waiter. They are all very short, Sansa observed about the staff. Why? Prince Doran and Lady Nymeria were of average height so it wasn't like all the Dornish had a stature of a child.

"Your brother?" Mr Clegane asked flatly, but Sansa sensed an almost imperceptible trepidation, a stiffening, of sorts, in the hand she had been holding.

"And Elia's," Prince Doran threatened sweetly. "You remember Elia, don't you, Mr Clegane. My dear brother Oberyn should be arriving later tonight, and he's eager to make your acquaintance."

"A shield, you said?" Sansa asked, trying to diffuse the situation. "What an interesting metaphor for good society."

"Is it?" Prince Doran asked back, appreciating her for the first time from tip to toe, as if she were a person and not merely Mr Clegane's escort. "Nowadays, some would say shielding is more important than anything," he commented as a man gone slightly demented all of a sudden, talking to himself. Mr Clegane looked at him with interest. "I have seen strange things under the sun..." the prince concluded. Her partner's interest wavered after that phrase.

Prince Doran must have found them boring after all because he abandoned them soon enough after turning so forgetful and strange, to welcome a stunning blond lady in a red dress, accompanied by a black haired, fat, and seemingly already drunk husband. The woman stared at Sansa, and Sansa found herself staring back until Mr Clegane gently tugged her sleeve.

"Joffrey Baratheon's parents," he said, his voice a pond of acid.

When she heard that, Sansa did her best to ignore them. She didn't want to give an impression she was after their son. And she was a married woman now, wasn't she? She moved to a shady corner of the loggia and her partner followed. His size and silence giving her the sense of security. Those who are after me, are they here?She shivered. The palace had a state of the art security surveillance system on the outside, displayed with labels for all to

notice its existence. It was unlikely anyone unauthorised would go either in or out once the festivities started. And the luggage of the guests would most likely be thoroughly scanned before it would be brought to their rooms. So even if those who wish to harm me are among the guests, they should not be able to have any weapons...

Pale light of the early afternoon illuminated the fountains and the flower patches and its glimmer on the watery surfaces filled Sansa's mind with unique pleasure. Beauty always did.

Mr Clegane's voice startled her. "They don't want us to nose around the second floor," he said. "Might be I'll do it when all the morons here go to their rooms."

"And if you are found?" she asked. Why am I worried about him? she wondered. Sansa, he's a murderer! she tried to correct herself, but the concern wouldn't go away. He has already killed for me, she realised, very belatedly. The guys in the truck on the road to Padua had nothing to do with their spying task.

"I'm an old drunk," he informed her, staggering on his feet when au unknown couple passed them. "The Martells know this."

"Oh," she said. "I see." Were there more unpleasant things to discover about her partner? Sansa hated drunks.

She looked at his glass then. It was still full. No matter how he appeared, he was totally sober. She wanted to ask him if he stopped drinking, but the moment was not good as more and more people gathered in the loggia to admire the view. Some of them, like Joffrey's mother, she noticed, manifestly tipsy, laughing.

The end of the reception couldn't come soon enough for Sansa. When it did, it made Mr Clegane happy as well. He practically raced her through the palace only to sag on the bed as soon as they got into their room.

There wasn't really any other place to sit down. Apart from the bed, there was a spacious in-built wardrobe on the left wall. A large rectangular window faced the entrance, and a door leading to the bathroom was to Sansa's right.

"What is there to see under the sun, I wonder," he told her in a weird voice and stared at her with attentive grey eyes, just like in the false church before he'd kissed her. "Not much, in the end," he decided, and stopped looking.

The bed was in front of her. The room suddenly seemed too small to contain the two of them and their belongings, occupying the rest of the empty space. Sansa looked at three large black suitcases which were not hers. And here I thought men didn't pack a lot of things, she thought. At least her father and brothers did not, and her mother had to do it all over again after them. Sansa had only one large bright purple suitcase, easy to spot on a belt when you travelled by plane, a rather small brown bag

she used for hand luggage, and six boxes of shoes. Moderate, for a woman, she thought.

Time to unpack, she decided and looked around for possibilities, sparing a moment to admire the beautiful geometric proportions and the overall simplicity of the tiny room they were given. The height of the window must have been in the golden ratio to the part of the wall under it, to better reflect the assumptions of the ancient architecture that at least some parts of the palace sought to imitate. It would be cozy if the couple in it were a real couple to start with. The door of the wardrobe moved, slightly, but Sansa's methodical look reflecting on the surroundings noticed it.

A cat, Sansa thought.

But it looked too large to be one.

A person, Sansa realized. A short one, like those waiters.

Mr Clegane sighed on the edge of the bed. His suit jacket was gone and he was about to take off his trousers. Sansa turned her back on him to give him some privacy and walked to the window, overlooking the back wing with ceramic monsters dancing on flat columns.

A click came from the wardrobe.

The person was taking pictures. As far as she could notice there have been no cameras within the palace, except at the entrance, in the main corridors and in the main living area, and probably around the perimeter walls. So they put a spy to spy on spies... The thought made her giggle nervously, and Mr Clegane gave her an equally upset glare, stopping the movement of undressing, believing that to be the cause of her unease. One giant leg was already out of trousers, a monument of hair, bones and muscle.

A horrible thought came all over her. Are they checking out if we are married for real?

She swallowed her tremor and crossed the four and a half steps separating the suitcases, the window, and the bed. She sank next to him and placed her hand on his bare knee.

"Honey," she said, "why don't we shower first?"

The look of bewilderment in his eyes increased. Somehow, it made her day. Or evening.

"If you say so, love," he muttered, mood swinging from uncertainty to amusement. Her happiness dwindling into wordless apprehension and horror. He shoved her toward the bathroom, one leg bare, one dressed, limping from the effort, she assumed. He grabbed her waist with one of his hands and used the other to open the bathroom door and slam it behind them. There, he pressed her back to the cold white tiles from which a blue three headed Cerberus laughed at them, she noticed when entering. Neither the dog's blue colour nor its rather friendly snarl fitted the scary mythical character of the guardian of the Greek hell. It should be black, Sansa thought. And opened her mouth in shock when Mr Clegane buried his jaw in her neck, somewhere between the black border of her non revealing dress and the beginning of skin under her ear.

Sansa gasped and continued uttering small sounds of disbelief. It was getting uncomfortably warm.

She was released after a while, and the amused expression on his face was replaced by that of an... office routine. He seemed terribly pleased about himself. Like a dog who brought a stick to his master, the thought came unbidden. She was no stick. It made her want to hit him. She had never wanted to hit any other person but Arya.

He let the water run in the shower cabin.

"I'm not blind," he said.

"I didn't think you were," she told him, indignant.

The bathroom had no windows and the only way someone was spying on them was within solid walls, two of which happened to be the outer walls of the palace, one led to their room, and Mr Clegane busied himself checking the fourth one, connecting to the inner corridor.

When he was more or less certain that no danger was lurking, he turned to her again.

"I was right," he said with a tone of a man used to being right. She felt the need to contradict him just for the sake of doing it, without any logical necessity. "This is about weapons," he stated. "What do you know about anti-missile shields?"

"I guess they protect you against missiles," she said frivolously because his question caught her by surprise. He laughed.

"Theoretically," he said, "if such a shield existed and if it were operational all over Europe, and if it were brought down by an unauthorised action, it could mean that somebody is doing this on purpose, to launch missiles on a defenceless target."

She couldn't follow. "I guess so," she said with caution. "And then?"

"Then you might be tempted to launch a few of your own, before those of your imaginary enemy would hit you."

"Do they build missiles in Dornistan?" Sansa asked. She didn't think they did.

"I don't think they have much technology," he admitted. "Just tons of sand and oil buried deep under it. But they've got plenty of funds and they're very close to powers that have some advanced military assets."

"What's worse, they are happy to sell oil to all of their neighbours," he paused and stared at her, awaiting her reaction.

"I thought shields were a means of defence," she tried.

"Same crap, defence, offence," he said. "Someone or something here will try to bring down the new anti missile shield in Europe which is still in its testing phase. Making it look like a manoeuvre preceding an attack. Already the fact that a foreign power knows about it will make the military people here nervous and trigger happy."

"Someone... or something, an entity," she tried again, "will make money on it."

"Right," he said. "Where did you learn that?"

Sansa remembered all the guys starting with Ramsay Bolton who only wanted to date her because of her father's money. They would still want to date her if she missed an eye.

"Isn't it true that when there is a disturbance in international relations someone always profits from it?" she said meekly, trying to use her university tone.

Mr Clegane did not speak. He closed the water. He still gazed at the bathroom wall with utmost suspicion, and for a moment, Sansa thought he had sniffed it.

Timidly, he said. "We should... we should... make some more sounds for whoever's listening out there. Unless you fancy a performance in bed."

"Your turn," she said, trying not to sound queasy. Attempting to be brave, she advanced on him and seized the front of his boxer shorts. The grunt he gave was genuine and so was the sound of a falling toilet brush in a heavy metal container when he jerked backwards and toppled it over.

Good, she thought, they'll think we're demolishing the place. She didn't dare to look at his underwear though, unsure what she could see under it. Instead, her eyes roamed down his still clothed leg and noticed for the first time the reason why he was limping.

"Oh my god!" she exclaimed, breathless.

"You made enough sounds earlier, don't you think?" he said, ironic and concise.

"How long have you been hurt?" she asked. "How could you drive? We could have crashed..."

"Well, mechanic Luwin fixed it a bit, it's only a knife wound.."

Sansa thoughtlessly attacked his trousers, making him sit on the toilet seat as she did that, and growl with pain and discomfort which could be conveniently misunderstood by their uninvited guest.

"Wait here," she said. She wrapped a large towel around herself and removed the dress she had been wearing. Before getting out of the bathroom, she undid her hair and splashed some water over it, in order to look dishevelled enough yet not to show any private parts to their eager public. Out in the room, she dug in her suitcase and found a first-aid kit and some disinfecting stuff. She always had it in case she would cut herself when cooking. The sight of blood terrified her. Back turned toward the wardrobe to hide her fumbling, she hid it under the towel and slowly walked back towards the bathroom.

"I'm coming, honey," she said as sweetly as she could.

All she could do was open the horrible bandage he wore, dispose of the ruined tie, clean the cut and cover it again. He hissed a few times when she was not treating him gently. It stopped bleeding and it didn't look that bad, just like he had said, but on the condition that he would not be walking so much for a day or two. The time they didn't have with all the social obligations and the need to scout the second floor of the palace.

"I will go," she told him, stubbornly.

She saw defeat in his eyes. "On one condition," he still tried to boss her around. "You take my phone. Whatever happens, don't lose it."

"So that you can find me?" she said, joking.

She stared at his eyes and saw something there which did not exist before. Or maybe it had always been there but she was unable to see it. Solitude larger than the world.

"Come on," she told him. "Help me emptying the closet. Unless you want to sleep in the bathroom."

Outside, she teased him. "Honey, will you help me with the stuff here?" she said and approached the closet. Abruptly, she pushed the door wide open. He was immediately behind her with her colourful suitcase, making lots of noise when he walked. Then, he turned totally silent and put a finger on his half-charred mouth. She kept quiet.

She believed she had seen his ears moving. Listening. She didn't know that was possible for people. Not to that extent.

"The coast is clear," he said after a while. "I think I could open the backside of this and close their passage but-"

"-they will know we found it-"

"-and they will use another way which we may not recognize on time to watch us-"

"I'll go out now," she said. "If I meet anyone, I'll say I was looking for a drink of water."

Prince Doran's palace was definitely not a hotel and there was no little fridge with drinks you could consume and pay later on. And Sansa would not be the only one among the guests to doubt the quality of tap water, she supposed. She returned to the bathroom to put the dress back on.

When she was ready to go, she found him standing at the window. "I guess you should lay down," she felt a need to mother him. "Men normally fall asleep after... Well..." she really didn't know why she started saying that. He immediately wore that damned amused look again.

"It might work. Could work. Take this," he gave her the phone, recovering fast from whatever he found so funny.

"And take care... Sansa," he said after her when she was out of the door, in a voice so quiet as if he didn't want her to hear it.

Chapter Text

Sansa (night 1)

Walking down the long corridor to the nearest stairwell, Sansa felt oddly alone. She didn't know when she got used to Mr Clegane walking after her as he did most of the time. Stalker, she thought, slightly repulsed. And missed the stalking nonetheless. She squeezed the purse containing his phone for reassurance, but she didn't get any.

I will hurry, she thought. There can be no harm in walking on the second floor, can there?

The stairs were spiral and narrow, as though they were in a turret and not encased between two square rooms, the very last ones before the broadening of the passage, leading into the central area of the palace. Female giggling came from one of the rooms as Sansa diligently climbed the steps. They must be married for real, Sansa thought. For a second, she envied the couple. She had no intentions to marry at all.

A large door of dark brown wood stopped her thoughts. A mountain of unease grew within her with each step. She pressed the door knob, shaped as a head of a hideous snake with open maw. Their own door, of the room she shared with her partner, had only a tiny, childish looking snake. Why the snakes? she thought it a queer and rather poor choice of decoration, unusual in Italian styles, real or faked. It was something about the Martells she couldn't remember from the paperwork. She made a mental note to read it again later that night when Mr Clegane would be sleeping.

The door hissed and gave in. It was dark behind it. She felt the wall for a light switch but she found none.

A voice, a familiar voice rang in the darkness. Sansa stepped away from the door and leaned on the wall, wishing to melt in it not to be seen. Why are you afraid? she thought. You've been only looking for a glass of water... A light was lit in front. It made Sansa see she was in another empty corridor, and the illumination came from within a room several doors away. The voice laughed. It was familiar. She crawled toward the chatter, hypnotised, eager to listen. That's what we came here to do, isn't it?

She hid in a deep door frame of the room just next to the one where two men were talking. She knew both voices but she could only recognise one. One belonged to the man who attacked her in Venice, not Brune, the other one. Sansa's heart fluttered.

"He is such a fool," the attacker said. "One would think a man of his age should know better."

"Or worse," the other voice joked. "Alzheimer disease can start early, I heard. I guess they've never heard about it in Dorne. He could be watering his flowers many times over in his garden, not knowing that he ever did it."

"You have a gift for words, my friend." Sansa shuddered from the voice of the man who wanted to harm her.

"For lies, you mean," the other one said.

"Isn't that one and the same?" Sansa wanted to run away but she couldn't. She couldn't make sense of what they were saying either so she waited.

"Like the pathetic inventions that seven foot animal in human skin said to get himself out of the prison?," the other man drooled. "I checked on him when I saw him and it was worse than I thought."

"I thought you liked animals, more specifically, birds." The sharp voice insinuated, and Sansa wished she could grasp the meaning fully.

"I don't dislike them. When they don't stalk daughters of my dear childhood friends with sinister intentions. Cat would expect of me to protect Sansa... Even from herself. It's the least I can do. Young girls can be foolish and trust the wrong men..." A friend of my mother, Sansa realized. Mr Baelish.

"I wonder..." the attacker said and his voice sounded less sharp. "The security tape of what has happened that day has never been found... And old Mr Lannister had cameras installed everywhere..."

"There has been enough evidence though." Sansa was glad that her mother's friend had her best interest in mind, but she didn't appreciate the tone of his voice. It was ugly when he was japing, just like Mr Clegane's scars. "The beast must have taken the tape out when he was done."

"How would a beast deal with such refined technology?" the other man was not sure. "Tywin bought the best for his premises."

"I guess he could just break the finesse of the equipment with his tiny fists," Mr Baelish refuted all doubt.

"Enough about it," he said after a short pause. Shall we discuss further business, my friend?"

Friend? Sansa was appalled. If Mr Baelish wanted to help her, why was he talking to the man who kidnapped her? Maybe he doesn't know. She tried to find an excuse.

"Some other day, friend," her attacker spoke indifferently. "There is someone out there listening in front of the door."

The words were followed by angry steps and Sansa bolted. The other door she was leaning on gave in behind her back. She slid in and closed it behind her. The room was dim, but the last light of the evening came hanging from the window.

"Here, I think," her attacker was approaching. "... the closest place to hide." In a moment, they would open the door and then... She didn't want to face them or answer any questions. She looked around. A stack of photographs in minimalistic modern frames stood in the middle of the room. Birds, Sansa saw. The room was for the rest much like the one Mr Clegane and her were given. Outside, they were approaching the door. Without thinking, Sansa plunged in the wardrobe and helplessly tried to move the back side. After a minute of nervous fluttering something broke and twisted.

She saw it.

A passage.

A hallway into further darkness.

Sansa squeezed herself in. In her distress, she nearly forgot to closed the panel she broke behind her. But she didn't. Jon would be proud, she thought.

"Why is the wardrobe open?" she could hear Mr Baelish say.

"Don't know," the other voice sounded bored. "I would guess that the exhibition material was in it and they got them out but they didn't finish the job of hanging them just yet. Maybe I was wrong. My pardons, friend. There's no one here. Can we now discuss what will happen in six days when this party is over?"

"You know it as well as I do." Mr Baelish said. At least he didn't call her attacker friend any longer, but Sansa still trembled at his next words. "Dorne will be wiped out of the map of the world. It's so small and insignificant anyway."

The words sent her running down the passage she was in, into the unknown. It is about weapons, she thought, on the verge of crying. What kind of weapons do you need to do such a thing? Why would anyone do it?

It wasn't a corridor. It was a maze. The passage behind the closet led a little bit down from the level of the room on the second floor she was in and than it forked into two. She took one of the openings, and further down it split into three different ones. There was some light coming from the tiny rectangular slits on top of the walls. They could be hidden among stones covering the facade of the palace on the outside. It was not enough. The day was dying. She took out Sandor's phone, intent to use it as a source of the light.

The silence was absolute, and wherever she had gone, she was at least certain that she was alone, but for the pounding of her heart.

The smart phone shed artificial electronic light in front of Sansa's nervous hands. She would have never thought that the light of a mere screen could be so beautiful.

When her trembling subsided, her thoughts raced back and forth to details unimportant for their mission. A beast stalking me? It didn't take her long to undersand. Mr Clegane?

A missing video tape?

She looked at his phone with renewed interest, forgetting her predicament for the moment. It was wrong to violate someone's privacy, but she couldn't help herself. Expertly, she navigated to the phone settings as she said she would, but not to figure out how it worked; how the service could call him with instructions, or how he could track her if no one could track his phone. Instead, she searched for the media files. There was not a single photograph, of a girlfriend, or a mother, or a pet as most people were wont to have in their phones. There was only one file.

A video file.

Sansa shivered with completely different apprehension than moments ago. She was about to discover something about Mr Clegane and her fingers felt sweaty. She pressed the play button.

A very tall man with long black hair just like Mr Clegane's was turning his back on her, naked to his waist, pants lowered down to his ankles. His body was so large that it covered almost the entire screen. A weak cry came from behind him.

"Please, don't," the woman begged. "Please, please, please.."

A huge bare arm got up, and the cries were muffled. The man moved in a way that could not be mistaken for anything else but what it was.

Sansa was shocked and she dropped the phone. Her light disappeared in more than one way.

Mr Cleagane was not only a murderer. He was a rapist. Maybe... maybe his brother came to defend the poor woman and maybe that was how it happened. How he murdered him. Sansa squatted in the darkness. The floor was cold cement under her black cocktail dress but she didn't mind.

She began to cry. Moments passed and she couldn't stop wailing like a child.

Then, she remembered Jon. She remembered Arya. She remembered her father. You are a professional. You are a security expert in the field of computer technology. You are here to do the job. Mr Clegane works for Mr Varys. He wouldn't employ a monster. Your partner is ugly, but he didn't do anything to you. Not yet, the small voice whispered.

"Shut up," she said loudly at herself.

A professional would be able to look at the horrible video without crying. A professional would analyse it.

She took the phone bravely and replayed the horrible sequence. It was not long, the awful picture of the woman's suffering dissolved into nothingness only a few seconds after Sansa had dropped the phone. You are a professional. She wiped a tear and played it again. You wanted him to be good, you idiot, the other inner voice said. You want people around you to be good and to like you. They don't. People are like Ramsay, remember?

Her father was not like Ramsay. Neither was Jon. But they were not just any people. They wer her family.

She stubbornly played the video again, telling herself that if she saw it for the third time she'd be able to accept he sad truth about Mr Clegane.

It was then when she saw it when her nerves were at least partially under control. In those last few seconds where the woman's cries were muffled by her aggressor.

The imperceptible glitch, a change in settings, a slightly different colour, a shift in the image. She was not an expert in video technology to know how it has been done and with what purpose, but she knew a hacked image when she saw one. It was like phishing applications trying to look like real ones to steal your data. The video has been either completely faked or tampered with. She couldn't be sure. Some of her friends might be able to help her, but they were far away, across the ocean. Margaery, a lawyer, knew some people who could do that.

She replayed it again. The damn phone was advanced enough that she could zoom in the face of the man. Hair covered it completely, but she thought she could see a tiny piece of pale skin on his neck in the middle of the lank black curtain hiding his identity.

Unblemished. Whole. How far do Mr Clegane's scars reach? How old was he when he got them?

She had more questions than answers where she had thought she had just uncovered the most disgusting truth about her partner.

Sansa shared a look with three of her brothers. What if Mr Clegane shared a look with his brother? What if... ? She decided not to think any more. You are a professional.

First she needed to get out of the maze. She closed her eyes. She breathed in and she breathed out. In the total calm she imposed on herself with great effort, the plans of the palace surged in her consciousness. So that is why Mr Varys sent them... Did he know? How could he? The labyrinth must have been custom made with the palace For what purpose? The person in her closet came in mind and she understood the reasons. Our hosts mistrust all of us. Why?

You would mistrust your guests too, she told herself, if your home was about to be wiped out from the map...

Very slowly, she recounted her steps back to the starting point where she had entered the hidden bowels of the palace. Mentally, she superposed the plans of the second and the third level. She needed to go a bit back toward the imagined centre of the palace and than further down. Then, she could be able to land in one of those rooms next to the stairwell if they also contained open closets. She suspected that they might and it was the only thing she had to go with.

It took her almost two hours to get there.

The maze has proven more treacherous than she believed it at first. When she gave herself for lost, her nervousness returned. She collided with a solid wide wall in front of another bifurcation of paths, and realized it was made of wood. She pushed. Nothing. She tried to slide the barrier. Something, maybe. She slid it further applying both hands to draw the imagined door from the right to her left. It gave in.

As soon as it did, she could hear them. The woman didn't stop giggling from before. Well, maybe, a bit. She dived out of the maze among gowns and expensive suits, with a horrible smell of strong Armani perfume on one of them. The one that had been worn that evening. She dared a peek out. The outer door of the wardrobe hung half open anyway. That's what when she saw them.

Rounded Mrs Stokeworth was on all fours and Mr Stokeworth seemed quite busy trying to prove that god created men for the purpose of procreation. The door to a corridor leading to the safety of the room she shared with Mr Clegane was at hand. Sansa decided to run for it. And changed her mind.

The couple seemed immersed in what they are doing. They seemed to like it. Even if Mrs Stokeworth was rather ugly and Mr Stokeworth a much more handsome man. Stop prying, she told herself. They are adults. So are you, a little voice said and she snuffed it hard, not to listen to such nonsensical observations.

She crawled out of the wardrobe as a snake, careful not to make the open closet creak, clutching Mr Clegane's phone. It had been lighting her way every step in the darkness. She had switched it off entirely before attempting her final escape so that it wouldn't beep. At the door she rose as silently as she could. Then, abandoning the sneaking, she opened it faster than Arya, slammed it back and ran down the corridor toward the end of the wing.

She realized while running how lucky she was not to meet anyone both before and now... Sansa, stupid Sansa, she thought. This is not for you.

When she opened the door to their room, the only light came from the moon, grand and yellow like ripe cheese over the expanse of the garden.

Mr Clegane seemed at peace. He was snoring gently, Sansa found, for such a big man.

She thought back of the entire conversation between Mr Baelish and the man who attacked her, determined to share all details with Mr Clegane over breakfast. She was too much of a coward to wake him up now when her mind was in such turmoil about who he really was and what he did. She paced down the room until her breathing calmed down from all the unplanned exercise and discoveries.

When she was calm, she stretched. And sat on the bed because there was no other place to sit or lay down.

She stared at Mr Clegane's scars. He put on some kind of grey T-shirt for sleeping and his legs were covered by a thin sheet. The warmer blanket was tossed on the floor. He must have found it too warm. His scars clearly reached his neck, all the way down to the beginning of his shoulder.

How old were you when you got these? she wondered. And how am I to find out? Why are you hiding the video if you know it's not you? Or is it you and am I as stupid as some people think?

Young girls are fools, a twisted voice of her mother's friend buzzed ominously in her ears.

Maybe he was protecting his girlfriend if it's not him, Sansa tried to find an excuse. If proper experts got a hand at the tape to tear its content apart, most likely her face and parts of her body could become plain visible as well. Mr Clegane should know that, working for the service.

Her pyjama was on top of her suitcase and easy to find. Moments later, she carefully lowered herself on the empty part of the bed, pulling over a warmer blanket from the floor. It was better to let him and his sheet alone.

Too tired to think, she yawned. When she lay down, she remembered his last words to her before she had left that evening. He was worried about her, that much was clear.

It made her move several inches closer to him.

"Good night, Sandor," she said, still yawning.

Only the moon watched over them as they slept.

Chapter Text

"How old were you when you got your scars?" Sansa blurted as soon as he opened his eyes. Sandor had to squint to chase out the excess of the sun.

"Six," he said, not conscious enough to think of anything else but the truth. "What is it to you?" he tried to growl but his voice lacked strength and conviction.

"Nothing," she said from the edge of the bed where she'd been seated, and buried her nose deeper in her laptop. However, he could swear that she'd sighed in relief.

How long had he slept? He'd intended to stay awake until she would return. What if something had happened to her? What if there were people like Gregor running around the bloody palace at night? What if...? Sandor Clegane was wide awake and on his feet in an instant. His leg was still throbbing, but he thought he could walk better.

Sansa Stark wore a fluttery linen suit, pink as the cover of her computer. A white top with ultra thin straps over the shoulders protruded under the semi-transparent jacket. Her hair was down and completely combed for a change. She smelled of cleanliness and perfection. Or she would be perfect if she didn't all of a sudden wear an expression of true shock plastered over her face.

"Something in the news?" he asked trying to sound casual.

"Nothing special," she denied it, but he could see that there was something.

"Found out anything?" he pried further, opening the smallest of his suitcases to find something he could wear for breakfast. He'd love to have breakfast in underwear but it probably wouldn't be appropriate. The bloody Dornish might think of castrating him for lack of decency. Where was Oberyn anyway? He should have arrived the night before. Somehow he expected a late night visit with knives before the sleep tricked him. His stomach howled. He was so hungry that if he didn't get any food soon, he was bound to try eating Sansa. The thought stretched further into the areas he didn't want it to go, into the fantasy world where pretty girls like Sansa fell in love with friendly monsters. He obsessively focused on his suitcase and his miserable attempt at conversation.

"Yes," she said, sounding guilty for not discussing business first, he guessed, "I saw Mr Baelish and the man who attacked me, not Brune, that other one. Mr Baelish said that in six days Dornistan will be wiped out of the map."

"I see," he said, taking a good whiff of the room. They were alone, for the time being. And whoever was behind the move they were investigating, was not joking.

"I mean, seriously," she said, unable to hold her tongue when something bothered her, as he had learned during their rather short acquaintance, "what kind of weapons do you need to do that?"

"Those that Dornistan doesn't have. We have them in the western world, and their Asian neighbours have them as well. Even those who are lying that they don't have them. All the tsunamis in the Indian Ocean. At least some of them come from testing the stuff."

"You mean the-"

"-the bomb, yes," Sandor Clegane interrupted her. "What else?"

"Mr Baelish seemed eager to protect me from... From you."

Sandor Clegane laughed, not caring how ugly it made him. "Yes, and? Anything else of import?" he continued his questioning.

"The man who attacked me said he believed that Mr Baelish liked birds. There were photographs of birds all around, for the exhibition tomorrow..." she continued dryly.

"Did you check the exhibits?" he asked.

"No," Sansa blushed. Luckily, she didn't apologise. "There was no time," she added, in her defence.

"I see," he said. They knew as little as when they started. "Best grab some breakfast then. We have to search for more clues."

They were among the last ones to arrive.

The kind man with a sword on his hip showed them to their table. They shared it with Joffrey's father Robert, Stannis's brother, and his cunt of a wife, Tywin's daughter. Despite gnawing hunger, Sandor Clegane considered that fasting would have been more to his taste. Or having a smoke in the garden. Most unfortunately, he had stopped smoking. And drinking. And having sex. He could stop breathing as well with all the good stuff he stopped doing, he thought sardonically. Robert was having whiskey for breakfast, and Cersei fought with a boiled egg whose skin evaded her ladylike attempts to peel it. Her dress was poisonously green. Poison ivy at work, Sandor thought, a genuine one, wolfing down several pieces of toast with ham and cheese.

"You must be Sansa, my darling," Cersei said, sounding just like her son. "Joffrey has told me so much about you on the phone."

"Yes, Mrs Baratheon," Sansa said.

"Mrs Lannister, my dear," the older woman admonished. "I've never changed my last name, I find it such a barbaric custom to do so. We live in modern times, after all."

"Mrs Lannister," Sansa said politely. "I'm sorry, I didn't know."

"How could you?" Cersei exclaimed. "The barbarians from the global south took care to stamp our husband's names on us both..."

Sandor noticed Sansa spying on the name tags. They mentioned Cersei Baratheon and Sansa Clegane in golden letters on orange paper. The tablecloth was white damask but the floral arrangement in the middle had red, orange and yellow flowers, the colours of fire and of the House Martell.

"Your father owns Stark industries, right?" Cersei asked. Robert belched. "Gonna get another one," he told his wife and lurched to leave the table, unsteady on his feet." Cersei waved a hand, as if she were chasing away the unpleasant odour of liquor so early in the morning. Truth be told, Robert didn't stink that much. She stank way more with the unpleasantly sweet French perfume she applied. And it was definitely too early for wearing so much make up as well, or Sandor didn't know shit about how women were supposed to dress for different occasions. Sansa looked like an angel compared to Cersei.

"That is correct, Mrs Lannister," Sansa said and lowered her eyes to her plate. It contained a raw carrot and a piece of brown bread with pumpkin seeds on top. He'd die of hunger pretty soon if he ate like a bird, Sandor thought.

"More is the pity," Cersei said, staring at Sandor for a change. "I never figured why some women have it in them to like brutes..." Sandor Clegane did not flinch. The bitch could call him anything she wanted.

"Your husband seems to be a strong man as well," Sansa sang like a little bird she was. Her comment didn't appeal to Cersei.

Before Tywin's daughter could reply anything, a steward called from the door.

"His Excellency Prince Oberyn Nymeros Martell!"

Oberyn strode in as a king, not a prince. His gait was more regal than that of the Queen of England. Long black hair covered his back. He doesn't have to brush it over his face, Sandor thought absurdly. Oberyn led a beautiful short woman inside. They both wore elegant white suits, one male, one female, in stark contrast with the golden brown of their skin.

"Where is my brother?" he asked the steward, quietly. "Is he all right?" Sandor could only make the words due to his superior hearing abilities.

"His Excellency Prince Doran is indisposed," the steward informed, "it's his illness..."

"Is he well guarded?" Oberyn wanted to know, and the Hound committed the words to memory.

"Captain Hotah is always by his side," the steward said.

"Good," Oberyn's black eyes circled the room like the eyes of a hawk.

Sandor Clegane endured his stare and waited for the storm. Sansa chatted with Cersei Lannister as if they were old friends, not noticing a thing. The tempest was not long in coming. Oberyn lifted a hand. A guard of twenty men burst in, all dressed up like parrots from some old film. They wore doublets, and bloody tights like the man on Prince Doran's door, but instead of a sword, at least five of them had guns, Sandor counted rapidly. Their colourful uniforms were all wrinkled. They came directly from the airport, all of them, see the difference between business and economic class, he thought, comparing the elegance of the prince and his partner with the raggedness of their bodyguards. Sandor stood up from the chair, not wishing to cause a fight in the dining room. Varys taught him not to break property and kill people unless it was absolutely necessary in his initial training. He noticed Sansa stood up as well, clutching her computer instead of a purse. He had no idea why she took that to breakfast to start with. And she was still hiding something from him, he could tell.

"Sandor Clegane," Prince Oberyn said with venom. "Would you and your lovely wife do me the honour to accompany me to the garden? I hear it is most beautiful now at the end of summer."

"I would love it! Thank you, Your Excellency!" Sansa sang further. For a short moment, the loathing in Oberyn's eyes was replaced by sheer confusion. Soon, hatred returned to them.

"Escort them," he hissed at his ridiculous guard of honour. They took Sandor and Sansa to a shady niche on one side of the garden. There were three mermaids depicted on the tiles, guarding a small rounded fountain in front, their tail blue on blue rocks. Sandor thought absurdly that one of the mermaids had a face like Sansa, except the colours were all wrong, the plain white and the blue of the dead enamel.

Admiring art was not his thing and it cost him the second it shouldn't have. Before he knew, the ridiculous guards were on him like worms. There were hooks on the wall next to the mermaids' heads and tails. He ended up tied as St Andrew on his cross, arms and legs spread wide. He could probably yank the good leg out, with the danger of twisting it, but he could not break out.

"Please, Your Excellency!" Sansa tried to say but no one paid her any attention.

Damn you, Varys, he thought, you and your diplomacy lessons. I should have thrown the table at them with all the dishes and insisted we talk in front of the other guests. He was ashamed Sansa could see him helpless as a little child, but as bad as the day looked, he was not afraid. It was perhaps time to have a conversation long overdue. If he could explain himself, for once, he could live the rest of his days without Elia's shadow. He wanted to talk... He wanted. It doesn't matter what you say, the little voice said. It never did. He wanted to talk and he could not. As always, his lips remained sealed. He gave Prince Oberyn a look of defiance.

By then, Sansa was paler than the mermaids he was hanging on. If her hair turned blue, she would truly look like one of them. Her hands shook clutching the stupid pink computer. As if that was going to get him down or give them the clues of what the hell was going to happen in Dornistan in five days. The coward in him took obscene pleasure from looking at her face. She is worried about you, dog. He reminded the little voice in his head that he was not the dog. Sometimes he was sorry he wasn't one in truth. It seemed way easier than to be a man.

"Ask Captain Hotah to join us," Prince Oberyn instructed the steward who also joined their little garden party.

"Won't you serve us drinks first?" Sandor said aloud. "I thought we were all guests here."

"Later," Prince Oberyn said, "when the dishonour you committed by accepting my brother's invitation is washed away."

To his servant, he said. "Make sure that Captain Hotah brings his axe."

"But, Your Excellency-" "Do as I say! My brother will still be alive if we borrow his bodyguard for half an hour!"

The servant scurried away. Sansa tapped Oberyn on his shoulder. "Excuse me, sir, what is the meaning of this?" she asked sweetly. "How did my husband offend you?"

"Bring the false priest!" Oberyn ordered his guards. They brought forward a friar in brown robes, head shaved on top, hempen rope around his waist. It was Varys's friend from abroad, Sandor knew him from the last Christmas party in the service. What was his name? Elder Brother... Varys liked the man well enough.

"A good friend of Dornistan and of House Martell brought this man to me as soon as we managed to land this morning! This false monk made a pilgrimage to Padua only to perform a false marriage so that you can crash my brother's party! Where is the servant who checked on Mr and Mrs Clegane last night?" Oberyn yelled at his household. Very soon, a short boy was brought in. And a broad shouldered grey haired man came of his own accord, carrying an almost six feet long axe. The Hound had never seen the likes of it.

"Did they have sex or not?" Prince Oberyn asked the boy.

"Your excellency, I have not seen a thing, but I sure think I heard a thing or two coming from the bathroom, if you know what I mean-"

"I don't," Oberyn said. "But it'll do. By the laws of Dornistan, coming to the party unmarried is punishable by the penalty of death."

"As if you have ever married your concubine!" Sandor could stand a lot, but he hated lies. It was public knowledge in high circles that Prince Oberyn never wed his partner, Ms Ellaria Sand, even if he loved her fiercely and much more than most husbands Sandor knew loved their wives.

"That is beside the point!" Oberyn was angered by his saying at first, but than his lips curved in a smile, as if Sandor's words could actually help him in what he wanted to do. That was not good. He shook his legs and arms in chains, but there was no way he could break out. He cursed his stupidity, his weakness for Sansa, Varys and the damn stone mermaids. "The princes can do as they please. In Dornistan and elsewhere," Oberyn said, "but I am not entirely without mercy and I will take you plea in consideration."

"Captain Hotah," Oberyn said sweetly. "I believe that the laws will be satisfied if Mr Clegane loses the limb with which he offended the honour of my brother..."

Sandor Clegane swallowed. That was not what he had in mind. Talk, you idiot, the voice said. Tell him. He won't believe me, the Hound thought. No one ever will.

Luckily, the captain was undecided. "Your Excellency, we should consult your brother. Let me bring him before the justice is carried out. He is our sovereign!"

"All right, all right!" prince waved his hand. "Fetch my poor brother. The laws are the laws. He cannot change them."

"Mr Martell," Sansa said, more confident. "Please, take a look, you are making a big mistake."

She had her laptop open and she was pushing it in front of the darkened face of the Dornishman.

"What?" he said, "I am not a catholic! Why are you showing me this squabble over who will be named as your new saint! Didn't your mother teach you any manners?"

"Your Excellency," Sansa continued politely, and loudly, so that all people present would hear. "You have to listen." Sandor noticed that there were more and more people attracted by the commotion. Some Yronwoods, Baelish, the little girl, Ermesande, with her doll, a few other guests...

"This is not about the saints," Sansa continued. "Yes, this news article mentions how Mrs Selyse Barathoen witnessed a miracle performed by a holy woman called Melisandre in Rome after the Pope wouldn't concede her a private audience. She apparently healed her ill daughter. But that is beside the point. The point is, the Catholic Church has appointed Father Lancel Lannister to write a report about Selyse's claims. Then they will look at it, and most likely nothing will come out of it. Few saints are born these days. The point is, it was Father Lancel Lannister who married us in Padua. Not this poor friar you have mistreated. Please, Your Excellency. My mother has taught me that princes do not mistreat people. Was she wrong to teach me that?"

Prince Oberyn was speechless.

Sandor Clegane processed what she had said and compared it with everything he didn't notice since they met Father Lancel on the road. Fuck me, he thought. I should have seen it instantly! Not even Varys could orchestrate the building of a church in fifteen days since we heard of this task. He is a man, not a sorcerer. Or rather, the Hound purposefully neglected to notice the obvious signs that Lancel Lannister really became a priest against the wishes of his father. Because a beast deep inside him fancied being married to Sansa Stark. Even if it lasted only for five days.

"Is it true?" Oberyn yelled at the friar. The Hound noticed that the man's mouth was taped. Oberyn removed the tape.

"I never married them," the Elder Brother said. "That much is true. I don't know about the other priest. I would have told you that much if you let me speak."

"There were witnesses," Sansa hammered the last nails in the coffin of Oberyn's intentions, looking more flushed and less like a bloodless mermaid with every word. "Mr Joffrey Baratheon, Mrs Selyse Baratheon and Miss Shireen Baratheon. Furthermore, if you do anything to my husband, Mr Martell, I shall have to ask for diplomatic protection. You will find that my father is a powerful and rich man in the States. It may bring trouble for your already troubled country."

Oberyn flashed her a puzzled look when she said the last sentence. So he knows something about the threat to his country as well, Sandor thought. Yet he chose to act on his passions and crucify me first, before asking any questions. The Hound felt more at ease realizing he was not the only one who sometimes reacted like that. Luckily, Varys's training helped controlling such unnecessary urges in almost all cases. Almost all. He could not stand woman beaters. Whenever he witnessed unnecessary violence done to women, the perpetrator was lucky if he escaped alive. The service provided cover and excuses for such occasions. It was the benefit going with the profession forced upon him for the good of the community. And they were still saving money, he guessed. In his line of work, it was unlikely they would have to pay him pension. He hoped Robert Baratheon would not slap Cersei in his presence, and the two men who kidnapped Sansa were only alive because Varys had begged him not to kill too many people on a foreign soil. Diplomatic scandals and all that. And he could only listen to that because they only put her in the bag, they didn't harm her in any other way from what he saw.

"I guess that the apologies are in order... Mrs Clegane," Oberyn conceded. "But we're not done yet," he told Sandor between his teeth. "Get him down!" he motioned to the guards.

"I didn't think we were," the Hound muttered as he felt the chains being removed. He found himself standing in front of Sansa, as blood slowly returned to his arms and legs. "I'm sorry you had to witness this, love," he told her flatly.

"It was not your fault, honey," she said. "Was it?" Her look was very inquisitive and it made Sandor feel unpleasantly naked.

It turned that the morning's fun was far from over, and the woman's arrival helped him to better ignore Sansa's question.

A serving woman stumbled over her skirt in front of Prince Oberyn, running breathless from the private residence of Prince Doran, whose glass panes could be seen reflecting the bright sunlight above the garden, on the side opposite the niche of the mermaids.

"It's your brother Prince Doran, Your Excellency," she breathed out. "He's been murdered, sir. I just found him head forward in the pool closest to his favourite terrace. He was stabbed by a pitchfork."

Chapter Text

Her pyjama had to be pink.

A lighter shade of pink than her bright girly laptop, to be sure, and obviously buttoned to the neck. Yet the colour was just a bit more intensive than the innocent hue used for babies. It had a warm undertone, stressing the copper glitter of her hair. Soft fabric embraced her closely. He would hug her even closer if she let him, he knew.

None of it helped quench his anger. It only tied his stomach in knots and left him in tatters, thirsting. On top and under his rage, ridiculous ideas mocked him. The Hound was made a mess. A puddle of muscle and bone well over six foot high. He wished the task was over. He wished they would stay married for real. He wished... His wishes could all go to hell. It didn't matter what he wished for.

We never get what we want, best live with that as you did until now, he told himself and kicked the bathroom door as hard as he could. Sansa jumped a bit where she was seated on the fluffy mattress. The Martells could afford comfort in their home, he had to give them that. She gave him an apprehensive, judging look, and buried her nose in the computer where it had already been for most of the day. There was nothing else to kick except maybe the bed where Sansa was seated, the wardrobe or his suitcases. Neither of it was a very wise thing to do.

The police invaded the mansion of the Martells immediately after Prince Doran's murder. Sandor could not judge how good they were in investigating the actual crime, but they were more than efficient in confining all the guests to their quarters for the rest of the day. Meals came and went. He ate his, and Sansa barely touched hers. They were locked inside in a cramped space of their room, and they had no idea what the hell was going on. It made him want to kill someone with his bare hands. And it forced him to look at her and realize the depth of his infatuation because there was nothing else they could do.

This is a working arrangement, he lied to himself, trying to deny what he saw in her one more time.

Sansa was lost in her screen. He even tried to thank her for helping him out of a tight situation with Oberyn, hoping a conversation could cure him. If she said something stupid, he could see her as he did that first day in Venice. As an empty headed little creature. A pretty thing that meant nothing to him. But she only dismissed him politely and stared at the laptop again. He wanted to yell at her, but he found that he could not.

When he asked what she was searching for, she wouldn't answer. She took her time to blush and to apologize for not being as social and as talkative towards him as she should. She sounded as if she meant it. Before returning to stare at the damn gadget again, the look she gave him was almost as sweet as the glances she was shooting at Joffrey on Piazza San Marco.

Sandor kicked the bathroom door again. This time, Sansa didn't even notice him. He looked outside. It was dark. Good, he thought. The Hound had had enough. He could not sit idle any longer. He took a good whiff at the room, trying not to do be too obvious about it. Looks like the Martell children are now sniffing on other couples' sexual habits, he thought.

When he was satisfied all was in order, he detached the bottom of the smallest of suitcases, right under the black tie attires he was forced to drag to the damn party. Only four remained. The one he wore that day was dirty beyond usage after the unforgettable experience of being hung in the garden. Like a monster in a circus, a man with two heads, exposed for the amusement of the crowd. He almost growled when he remembered the humiliation. Working with weapons would set his mind somewhat at ease, or so he hoped. He took out the parts and proceeded with assembling the portable sniper gun, Varys's own improved edition, on the basis of the standard army model. Lighter and deadlier, if one knew how to use it. It worked better at some distance, but in case of dire need, it could be fired in the proximity of the target just as well. And I never missed a shot, he thought with some pride. Killing was what he was good at. Always had been. Since he was twelve. Since his brother. He heard Sansa gasp before he could stuff his pockets with extra ammunition.

"What is that?" she said.

"How does it look?" he retorted gruffly, happy for her reaction. Nothing as a good scare to draw this girl's attention, he thought, ironically.

"But we were scanned and-"

"So?" he asked.

"But..." she stammered further and shut up, mouth open in understanding. She stared at the other two suitcases with palpable fear. She must have wondered what was in them. The girl could be really smart when she wanted to. Somewhat slow to grasp the horrible facts about the world, but clever nonetheless.

Yes, Sansa, we were scanned and so what? he thought with disdain. Do you seriously think we're the only ones who fooled the scanners? The service had developed a special coating which would fool even the most advanced security checks. He wondered if someone had already sold the product to the Chinese or to some other friendly competitive nation in the great wide world.

"Where do you think you're going?" she asked then, regaining her composure.

"I'm going to take a look at the crime scene," Sandor said. "Doran tried to talk and than he died. There has to be something there. We've wasted a good day. Most of the agents will be gone by now, to close the work for the day."

"You will go just like that, waving a gun?" she asked.

"No," he said, hiding the sleek weapon in the long left inner pocket of his worn suit jacket. He let it casually unbuttoned and made a few steps up and down, as much as the room allowed. "See," he said. "Like this."

"Okay," she said. She unbuttoned the pyjama top and pulled it over her head as if he were her sister or something, and not a red blooded man.

The bra had to be pink as well, colours matching. It was best not to dwell on more than decent size of what was in it. All he could do was stare. Sansa didn't seem to notice it. She found a clean blouse and some trousers, not bothering to change in the bathroom as she did on the first day. If someone asked him what colour were her trousers, he wouldn't be able to tell.

"Where do you think you're going?" he asked when she was done.

"With you," she said, "we're married, remember," she joked and made that sweet smile that was until that day reserved for the likes of Joffrey.

"How could I forget?" he said ironically, but his heart was pounding, like an old grandfather clock ticking the time away in a dusty hall.

He approached the door and turned around only to see Sansa disappearing inside the wardrobe. When he didn't follow suit, her head popped out and she commanded, "This way." She was barefoot. He took the hint and kicked his shoes out as well.

The maze was dark and hollow, and at times he had to stoop not to hit his head. The only good thing about it was that he couldn't see her clearly. He smelled other people in the corridors but they were always reasonably far. They walked undisturbed for a while. He believed that they crossed most of the main wing of the palace and that they were approaching the part reserved for the Martells, on the far left corner, but he could not be certain. They used his phone for light.

"Here, I think," she whispered. She pushed at the wall, but it wouldn't move.

"Let me," he said, borne by the desire to help. "Thank you," she said, a proper little lady even when she sneaked around buildings barefoot.

The grey surface in front of him gave way.

The room was dark when they entered. A low glass table and a white couch stood in the middle. They came out of the large fireplace, mercifully unused in summer, and probably no more than a decoration anyway. The heating and air conditioning unit lined one of the walls. There were framed photographs above it, of Oberyn and Elia, and other dark skinned people Sandor did not know. The outer door was barred to prevent access to Prince Doran's quarters. They were already on the inside, so it didn't matter.

"How did you know how to get here?" he asked Sansa, his voice quiet for a change.

"That's why Varys sent us the plans," she explained. "You have to superpose what you know with what is in-between and you can go about anywhere."

Plenty of coming and going explained the extra smell in the maze, no doubt. He wondered if he would be able to do what she did. Most likely he would, if he had figured what the plans were for, or if Varys had told him. Then again, Varys always believed in Sandor's intelligence more than the Hound himself did. But now he had made a mistake, he dismissed the photographs and the plans of the palace as some tourist information. Obviously there was much more to it, and he'd have to look it up again.

He caught Sansa's hand when he heard something stirring in the garden. Automatically, he put her behind himself as he crept forward in the darkness. She followed, holding hands, silent as a tombstone. Good girl, he thought.

A woman shrieked, and then she sobbed, quietly. Sandor Clegane knew her smell, but he didn't know the one of her attacker.

"Don't," the woman pleaded.

The Hound forgot about Sansa and leapt forward. He was outside in an instant. A black shadow was leaning closely over the weeping woman, holding a large butcher knife. Sandor grabbed the aggressor from the back and pulled him away with all his might. And he needed it to deal with that one. The man was masked, almost as tall as the Hound and strong as an ox. The attacker used the force of the pull to stumble sideways, bend, and run away, too nimble for a man of his size.

Sandor ran instantly after the him through the moonlit garden. Normally, he should have caught him. He was the Hound, and the dog rarely lost a trail. But Doran's mansion defied him. All he could see, hear and smell were the crickets, the fountains, the sculptures and the trickle of the water. The man had vanished in thin air. Or in another passage that we don't know of. Sandor reached the barrier placed by the police to separate Doran's private part of the garden from the rest. There was no sign of life, and he didn't feel any cleverer.

"Are you okay?" he heard Sansa asking on Prince Doran's terrace.

"I think so," Lady Nym answered when the Hound returned, stretching arms and legs.

She had been pinned to the stone border of the fountain by the man Sandor had lost. Three headed dragon snarled in the middle of the basin.

"It is believed that the dragons will protect our sovereign," Nym said noticing his curiosity.

"It didn't do much good to your uncle, did it now?" the Hound had to say. "Who was it?" he asked. You knew him! He wanted to accuse her, but instead he held his tongue. He needed at least one of the Martells on his side, if Sansa and he were to uncover what threatened Dornistan in three more days.

Nymeria looked at the ugly stone dragon, avoiding the Hound's gaze. The water in the basin was still dirty from Prince Doran's blood. And Sandor Clegane felt thoroughly ashamed because the colour of fresh murder only served to remind him of the gentle hues of Sansa's underwear. The police had removed the body, but they haven't yet cleaned the premises, it seemed. And Sandor and Sansa were not the only ones who came sniffing.

"Who was it?" Sansa repeated the question.

"One of the children, I think," Nymeria said, "we employ so many. My uncle believes in them more than in the security cameras. They're patrolling the palace at night, and more discretely also during daytime. I don't know all of them. The boy was here in the garden. I must have startled him. He would've done for me if you didn't show up."

Liar! That was no boy who attacked you, Sandor thought.

"Isn't child labour forbidden in Dornistan?" Sansa wondered.

"It's a great honour to serve the sovereign," Nym said. "They only do it for a summer or two. In winter they go to school."

"Do you have winter?" Sansa inquired.

"We call it that way," Nym explained, "even if it doesn't get very cold."

Sandor let the two women exchange pleasantries and proceeded to examine the premises. Several hours later, the women still talked, it was past three o'clock in the morning, and he was tired. There was nothing unusual, there was not a single clue as to what threatened Dornistan or to who killed Prince Doran. There was nothing out of order. The living room was neater than Sansa's suitcase. Doran must have entered it for the first time since he arrived from his homeland, and then he met his end.

"What do the police think?" he asked Nymeria. "You're family, you should know."

"They arrested this fat drunk for murder," Nym said. "Robert Baratheon," she scratched her head. "I can give it to them, the man is as strong as a boar and he could have wielded a pitchfork. He denies it of course, but he was not in the garden when my father had his little amusement with you..." She looked as if she was actually sorry about it, but only a little bit. "Father is still seething in his own quarters. I don't think he'll sleep much. He blames himself for Doran's death. If he didn't call Captain Hotah when he did... Well, no use to cry about it now," Nymeria said, and wiped a tear anyway. "The police, they don't have the fingerprints yet, and I don't think they'll find any. This place was swept clean, and one of the gardeners is missing as well, that would be the one who left the pitchfork in this part of the garden."

"What are you all afraid of?" Sansa blurted.

Nymeria braved the silence around them and spoke rapidly as a shotgun.

"Someone, or something, will launch a destructive weapon on Europe or the US, we don't know exactly the target, from the Dornish soil. Or from close proximity, making it look as if it were done from Dornish soil. From the desert more likely than not. The destruction will be of such magnitude to cause immediate retaliation first, and asking questions later. We're controlling our borders as best we can, but every control can be fooled, as your husband can confirm," she finished, pointing at Sandor's jacket, where the gun was apparently not sufficiently well hidden.

Sansa was right, Sandor thought, this is not only about weapons. This is about security in the digital environment. He was not a computer whiz, but he had known Varys and Brienne long enough. There were many ways to show that the information was coming from the wrong location. Why not, a fake firing sequence, for all he knew. The Dornish could guard their borders as much as they wanted if the weapon was not even there, but in some of the neighbouring countries. But there were ways to find the original location from where the data came from, if you were skilled enough... Can you do that, Miss Stark? he wondered, looking at Sansa. Is that why you are here? Or are you here only to torture me...

"I would need access to your main security and defence frame if possible, to determine how vulnerable it is," Sansa said.

"Only the sovereign has that from among the people who travelled here," Nym said. "Doran... Shit..." she said.

"Oberyn," Sandor said knowingly.

"He won't give it," Nym shook her head. "Not to you," she said accusingly.

"I'll talk to him," Sansa offered.

"You may try," Nym said and stared Sandor down. "But you are his wife."

"Where are Prince Oberyn's quarters?" Sansa wondered.

"Sorry," Nym flatly refused them. "I won't tell you that. Few people know as it is. He's the next target if a murderer is still among us. I told you enough as it was. Maybe next time it's your husband who comes after me with a knife and all this is a ruse. If you are here to help, find a way to help us. If not, I'm a dead woman anyway. I will be going now. Best of luck, Mrs Clegane, Mr Clegane..."

Nymeria vanished in a garden just like her mystery attacker, and they took the same way back. The Hound felt painfully inadequate. The entire conversation showed he was the main obstacle towards resolving the bloody mess and returning home as soon as possible.

"We are wasting time," he said. "We should already know who's behind this and why. We only know that Baelish knows. Did you investigate him on the net this entire afternoon?"

"No," Sansa sounded terribly embarrassed as if she had been plotting to murder her father. "Maybe we should take a look at the birds instead, what do you say?"

"Birds?" he had already forgotten his suggestion from the night before but it had appeared to be a sound one. "Fine with me."

Sansa took his hand, and led him back through the maze. It appeared shorter and less dark than before. She chirped as if she had seen him in a new light since he saved Nymeria.

"There were pictures, but just like we thought there were eggs and stuffed birds too..."

"Then some of it at least may be illegal in Europe. Protected. Unauthorized to have at home. Even for foreign nobility," Sandor tried to remember which were exactly the protected species. In his rare time off, he would travel and watch birds. Mostly by himself. There was a wild park in the south of Spain which he intended to visit at the end of September if he could. Birds didn't shoot at you, and that was a most relaxing thing on a vacation. Then again, the Martell birds might shoot at him, if they could.

"So they smuggled the exhibits to Italy, somehow," Sansa finished his thought.

"And when they take the same precautions to take them back they could take another thing as well, a beacon, a chip... I don't know, something..."

"A server," Sansa said quietly.

They spent two hours suspiciously looking at the bird eggs and photograph frames. Short of opening the bellies of the stuffed specimens, they didn't find anything of import.

"It's somewhere here, I can smell it," the Hound growled.

"Maybe it's not in here," Sansa said dreamily. "Maybe it's in the way that this is done. The exhibition, I mean. The position of the exhibits could be the code to take down that experimental shield you mentioned."

"But then-"

"We have to move one of the exhibits and the code will be wrong. The attack on Europe will fail-"

"-but there still will be a retaliation on Dornistan if we don't learn more," Sandor said, "and there's too much stuff here, we don't know what to move."

"The opening is tomorrow," Sansa said maliciously, mentally calculating. "Let's switch the positions of one artefact in every room..."

The Hound ended up carrying frames, eggs, and stuffed birds, so that she wouldn't have to do much work herself. Ladies were supposed to be idle, a thought came and he shushed it. Idiot, he told himself. As if she'll be going to bed with you because you're on your best behaviour...

Back in their room, Sansa stood at the window and faced him, sullen and silent all of a sudden. She gave him a good glare of those blue eyes of hers and said, more serious than the judge who condemned him for killing his brother, "I will ask for an audience with Prince Oberyn tomorrow. I need to know what you did to him that he hates you so, or as much as you are willing to tell me. I don't want him to surprise me by telling me how you murdered your sister-"

"I... did... not... murder... my sister...!" the Hound snarled every word, offended to the core. How could she think that? I suffered to see her safely out of our parents house! And it was worth it...

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to insult you-"

"-What do you know?" it was too late to stop the flood of words. "You had this nice little home with your parents and brothers and sisters. All full of teddy bears! Don't even bother to deny it! It's written all over your face. We're not all that lucky, you know. My parents died when I was five. In a car accident, can you imagine?

Gregor, my brother, he was already over 18 years old and working. He got legal custody of both my sister and me. But he was not an ordinary brother, you see.

We lived in a small town. But even a small town has hotels and people who buy sex. There was this little park above the hotels, near our house, where the whores stood, both male and female, some of them very young. Gregor would go there every Saturday. The whores would disappear, but the police never bothered to check too much on them. No one did. Rumour had it that Gregor preferred the very young ones.

Our sister, Elena, she was twelve when he came after her. It happened one Saturday when he came home drunk, much earlier than usual. He apparently didn't find anyone to his liking in the park. He was silently climbing the stairs, whispering her name, but I heard him first. I always hear things first. I was in Elena's room before him. I told her to go to my room until Gregor went into hers. I told her that, as soon as Gregor entered her room, she should run and stay with the neighbours. They were an honest family of six where the father had a gun and knew how to use it. I went to her room and waited. I thought if Gregor raped me, I could live with it. I understood that for some reasons rape was worse for girls than for little boys. I thought it wouldn't hurt much more than when he would beat me. But he didn't do it..."

"What did he do?"

Sandor Clegane turned the burned half of his face towards Sansa. She covered her mouth and began crying. He saw how she grasped the window to steady herself. It made him feel like a pathetic asshole.

He sat on the bed and faced her, hands shaking.

"I was six," he said, "almost seven. The police asked questions, but Gregor told them I slipped and fell in the fireplace by chance when I was home alone. He immediately took me to the hospital and started telling the story to all who would listen and to those who wouldn't. I tried to tell the truth at first. I tried. I tried but no one listened. No one believed me. They all believed Gregor, and I was deemed to be in shock. The boy doesn't know what he's saying, they said.

Only one good thing came out of it. The social welfare services reviewed our living arrangements. A foster family was to be found for one of us, either for Elena or me, so that dear old Gregor would have more time to care for one of us. And then I told them what they wanted to hear. I told them that I loved my brother dearly, and that he was so very brave to put out the fire and then bring me to the hospital. I told them how much I wanted to stay with Gregor. Two weeks later, Elena was sent to a foster home on the other side of the country. It's where she lives even now."

"Is this why you killed him?" Sansa asked. She made a small step toward him. She lifted a hand towards his burns, and let it fall back down, unable to touch the horror he had for face.

"No," the Hound shook his head and turned his back on her. He found himself unable to talk further. He wondered what had to happen to him in order to disclose the rest. He could break his head about it as much as he liked but he still couldn't think of anything that would cause him such verbal diarrhoea.

After what seemed like an eternity he felt warm arms hugging him from the back.

"Come," she said and swallowed something else she wanted to say. He thought that honey, come to bed, would have sounded much better. But it would have been only a lie, he knew. "It's almost morning, we should get some sleep," Sansa insisted.

He gave no reply.

Thin arms forced him to lay down until he yielded. Empty of thoughts, empty of heart, empty of everything, flat on his back, he gazed up. She was next to him, laying on her side. She leaned on her hand and looked at his face, more or less, as much as she was able to, wearing an expression he could not read.

He instinctively reached for her head, waiting for her to pull back, or say something. She didn't.

And neither did she close her eyes.

Her lips were soft and welcoming, her scent as intoxicating as ever. She was all over him, on top of his body and inside his head. His arms slid to her back.

It made her pause and give him a very quiet look.

"Something wrong?" he asked, afraid of her reaction for the first time since they met.

She smiled at him and said. "I can see nothing wrong with some good old fashioned kissing."

Chapter Text

Her guilt could move the mountains.

I should have checked who Mr Baelish was, indeed, she thought.

Instead of doing the sensible thing and finding out everything there was to find out about the man who knew about the imminent destruction of Dornistan and thought of it as slightly funny by the mocking tone of his voice, Sansa had spent almost the entire day of confinement to quarters checking online for any information on Sandor Clegane. As if her life depended on it. For any information on her partner, her husband in the eyes of god and her... She was unable to finish her own thought about what he had become.

Sansa believed in god. Her mother was a catholic; she liked songs and rites, and windows of coloured glass, they invoked the greatness of god. Her father belonged to one of the reformed groups; for him god was only in words, not in images. But the marriage traditions were the same for both. This marriage can be dissolved if we don't... well...if we don't go further than kissing, Sansa tried to comfort herself, but the thought brought no consolation at all.

A serving lady in Martell orange and yellow brought her coffee. It was 7am and too early to have breakfast. The electric lights were still on. The morning was a dim pink glow over the distant garden. Sansa was one of the few guests awake that early. Two police agents paced up and down in the far end of the dining room, making everyone feel on edge.

Sansa had left Sandor asleep. She needed coffee in her system to clear her mind. And to double and triple check her findings. Just like the day before, Sansa could not find that much information on Sandor. A wasted effort. The service must have hidden it because he's a spook, she thought at first. She established he was 12 when he killed his brother and ended up in a juvenile prison, but there was no mention of any girl he or his brother may have raped as the video in his phone showed... She could find so very little about him as if he had no existence before he met her.

And then he had shocked her with the story of his burns.

She couldn't deny the truth in it. It was not a sweet lie boys used to tell her to get into her panties or into her father's company board. And Sandor was not a boy by any definition. She tried to tell herself she kissed him only to comfort him. That it didn't mean anything. But it was not so.

Sansa developed a connection with this man, despite his past or because of his past, she didn't know, in only a few days that she had known him. When he was not angry and rude, he seemed so... well... plain and honest. People are not honest, she reminded herself. People are after your father's money. She realized that Sandor made her feel safe and he made her feel on edge... She couldn't tell of what.

"Mrs Clegane!" Cersei Baratheon seemed delighted to see her when she barged into the dining room and into Sansa's thoughts. Sansa did not share the feeling but she was a good girl and she did her best to be polite.

"Would you like to sit down, Mrs Baratheon?" Cersei's well-shaped behind slumped on a chair before Sansa could finish extending the invitation. She wore crimson red trousers and a flimsy top made of golden silks. It was so early in the morning and her husband was suspected of murder. Instead of being tired, or sad, Cersei was beaming.

"I am so sorry about your husband being arrested," Sansa said, wondering if it was a right thing to say.

"Don't be," Cersei said. "Robert didn't do it." She sounded as if she wished that Robert actually did kill Prince Doran. "He'll be out soon enough," she sighed. "Let's' talk about merrier things, shall we?"

"It's a beautiful day, isn't it?" Sansa said, wondering what Mrs Baratheon considered as "merrier". Sun was rising above the garden in tender tones of orange and gold. It was a lovely sight.

Mrs Baratheon didn't seem to pay any attention to the weather. "You are a fine young woman, my dear," she said. "Joffrey would have done well to ask you out."

"But I'm married," Sansa protested.

Prince Oberyn Martell joined his guests at that moment, sauntering toward a place of honour in the middle of the room, in front of a large tripartite window of the loggia, overlooking the garden. Mrs Ellaria Sand was with him. Unlike Mrs Baratheon, they both looked sad and tired. Mrs Baratheon followed them with an insistent gaze.

"Sansa, if I may call you so, little dove," Cersei said, "our charming host seemed most fond of your husband yesterday."

"Fond?" Sansa stuttered. "It's kind of you to say so, but I don't think that-"

"You will be a most beautiful widow, my darling," Cersei concluded. "I will most certainly remind Joffrey to give you a call when that occurs. True friends are needed in such hard times."

Joffrey was the most important agent in the service. Judging by the designer clothing and jewels Mrs Baratheon wore on a daily basis, he seemed to have enough money of his own so he wouldn't need Sansa's, and Sansa believed that her parents might approve of him. Her mother for sure. She wasn't that sure about her father. He might even prefer... Sandor. Her partner's name felt queer in her mouth, like a taste of a last night kiss.

"Please, excuse me," Sansa said, "I want to pay my respects to our gracious host."

I have to get those security codes tomorrow at the latest, she thought as she glided toward the central table on too high heels Sandor had bought for her in Padua. Tomorrow is the last moment to counter the threat if their system will come under attack in two days. In her shoes, Sansa was an inch taller than Oberyn. She hoped he was too distracted by his brother's death to notice it.

"Your Excellency," she said carefully. Oberyn's wife, Ellaria, was the first one to take a good look at her. Sansa felt embarrassed and lowered her eyes.

"Yes?" the prince said, impatiently.

"I am sorry for your loss," Sansa offered. After a pause, she continued, ignoring the fact that Ellaria was undressing her with her eyes. "I understand that you are now the Supreme Commander of the Dornish Armed Forces. I should very much like to evaluate the security of your main defence portal if you would let me. I did a lot of theoretical work in this area and I'd be happy to submit a detailed CV to illustrate my area of expertise.

"Theoretical," Prince Oberyn sounded venomous. "I am no stranger to theories myself. However, I abandoned my science studies when I understood the futility of most assumptions..." Sansa noticed how the prince had noble, brown eyes which drifted away toward the garden. "I wonder," he said, "what did my brother said to you the day before he died?"

"Prince Doran had been most courteous," Sansa said.

"Which means he didn't tell her anything at all," Ellaria said with a prominent Dornish drool. "That's so much like Doran, may he rest in peace."

"I may allow you access to our country's defences," Oberyn said and Sansa sighed with relief. "On a condition," the prince continued, and his lips thinned in a morbid smile, which made him look older and way less refined. His dark eyes focused on Sansa's shadow which took form behind her and grunted. "Darling, I was beginning to wonder where you were," Sandor said, yawning. He didn't even put a hand in front of his mouth, but he did put both hands on Sansa's waist from the back.

"Hi, honey," Sansa reacted. "I got up early. I couldn't sleep." It was the truth. She turned her head to face him, and gave her husband a bright smile. His hands were warm on her tummy.

"Newlyweds," Ellaria said sardonically, and His Excellency Prince Oberyn Nymeros Martell only spared them a disgusted look. "Come Ellaria," he said, "we have two exhibitions to open pretty soon. Mrs Clegane, Mr Clegane, please do not miss the inaugurations. We shall continue to discuss my conditions once we are done with the programme for today."

"What was that about?" Sandor asked when the new ruler of Dornistan left.

"Nothing," Sansa muttered. She could see that her answer did not please him. "What?" she asked, brutally, as if she were talking to Arya, her sister. She remembered instantly that Sandor wasn't her sibling.

Sandor Clegane made a most hideous grin she had ever seen on him, and guffawed. "No pretty words for me?" he asked. "I'm not a prince, am I?" he said, not expecting any answer. He lifted her off the ground, and kissed her loudly and greedily. A Dornish couple whistled from one of the window seats. Yronwoods, Sansa thought. He is huge and she is pretty. Like us. The last thought thoroughly scared Sansa. Do Sandor and I really look like a married couple? She could feel her cheeks growing tremendously red.

"Let's go to the bloody exhibition, shall we, my dear?" Sandor grunted merrily, enjoying her embarrassment. "The birds are waiting!"

The birds waited indeed.

The havoc Sandor and Sansa had caused the night before gave more fruit than they intended. A dozen couples competed with each other in trying to return the moved exhibits to their previous place. Most of them Dornish, the Yronwoods, the Dalts, the Daynes, Lady Blackmont and a few others. Cersei Baratheon got hold of an egg of a rare kind of wild goose, carrying it to the spot it occupied a night before. Two couples were tailing her as if they were her guards of honour, the Plumms and the Crakehalls. They looked as if they wanted to assist her in a most difficult feat of hauling an egg.

Sandor seemed to amuse himself no end. He was everywhere. In perfect gentlemanly behaviour that was so unlike him, he tried to be most helpful with all who needed help. He took a photograph of a stork from Lady Blackmont's hands and set it firmly to the wrong place before she could object. He was one step ahead of the Daynes when they tried to return a stuffed crow. The crow stayed where Sansa had put it the night before. He kissed Cersei Baratheon's hand to retrieve the egg she had been carrying and place it where he wanted it. Sansa's eyes were full of tears of laughter when he did that, even if Joffrey's mother was undoubtedly a beautiful woman. Little dove, Cersei had called her. Maybe I am a dove, Sansa thought, a grey bird that no one would notice if it weren't for my father's shares.

But before running after the Plumms or the Crakehalls to retrieve the same egg Cersei had wanted, Sandor kissed Sansa on her mouth, and gave her that crooked ugly smile only Sandor could produce. Morning sun shone through the regular square windows of the upper floor of the palace and Sansa wished it were evening. She looked around when her husband left her again. Lady Nymeria was talking to Prince Oberyn and his wife. Sansa was both glad that she was safe and sorry to see her in good health. If someone else is murdered, we will be confined to quarters, a shameless thought caught Sansa unawares. There was a bed in their room... God! She immediately censored herself. What am I thinking?

Sandor was talking to Mr and Mrs Dayne from Starfall about nature parks in Europe where you could watch birds. Simultaneously, he gently patted a swallow nest in Mrs Dayne's hands and stuck it in his pocket like a thief when the lady was not watching. Sandor, my husband, Sansa thought. He was wearing a dark blue shirt and a matching pair of trousers. Semi-casual, he looked more at ease then ever since Sansa had met him. He almost didn't look like an older ugly guy prone to brooding or killing people on the side roads and throwing them in a ditch. He almost looked like an important secret agent as Sansa had imagined them before Jon gave her a call.

Sansa forced her thoughts back on track. The bird exhibition turned funnier than expected. But the downside of it was that they had about 20 suspects who might be trying to sell the anti-missile shield code to the enemy of both Europe and Dornistan. But they had no idea whatsoever which one of the guests was interested in buying.

Very annoyingly, Mr Baelish tried to approach Sansa on several occasions while Sandor was playing the gallant helper of the ladies and the gentlemen, chasing bird parts from one room to another. Sansa managed to avoid him every time. Ever since her solitary night stroll through the maze of the Martells mansion, she didn't feel at ease in the presence of her mother's old friend. He spoke kindly to the man who attacked me. He knew about the threat to Dornistan. A short online search on Mr Baelish during her early breakfast gave no spectacular results either. He was a CEO of a minor company selling dog food, working jointly with a larger industry owned by Mrs Baratheon's father, Tywin Lannister. And this Mr Lannister may have had something to do with the video recording Sansa had found in Sandor's phone. Somehow she knew that if she asked Sandor about the video, he would not just tell her what happened as he did with his scars. He would go really angry because she watched his private stuff. The company of Mr Baelish claimed it was open to new challenges and areas of doing business, but their website never mentioned what those challenges were.

"My husband is waiting for me," she told Mr Baelish last time he tried. At that moment Sandor was complimenting Lady Yronwood on her hairstyle and removing a loose silver duck feather from her hair. Sansa didn't even know where they had put the duck feather the night before. Neither did Sandor, it seemed. Nonplussed, he walked to the open window, rubbed his eyes against the excess of the sun, and dropped the feather on the outside when no one was watching.

A cocktail was served to replace a lunch, in the middle of the palace on the second floor. Between salmon snacks, and ham snacks, and juicy cakes made of lemon, lime and orange, Sandor whispered in Sansa's ear when they had a moment of privacy.

Newlyweds, Sansa parroted Ellaria's words in her head, fighting a shiver which went all the way down her spine.

"Too many people know about the shield," Sandor said pensively. "I should report to Aemon on that."

"By all means," Sansa smiled. "Now I only need to get access to the Dornish defence and see that it is strong enough."

"You better do that," Sandor said, "because our buyer will have noticed the confusion."

"What will the buyer do?" Sansa inquired.

"Find a new suitable target in the US or in Europe," her partner said. "God knows that there are plenty of them."

Sansa shivered with premonition at his last words.

Well-fed, the guests started to move forward, from one exhibition to another. From birds to arms. Sansa was still sipping a glass of white wine. Wordless, she studied Sandor who was gulping the last drops from a glass of Dornish red.

"Dornish," he joked, "sweet women and sore wine."

Light played tricks on his scars. At one moment they looked soft like little duckling feathers, and at another leathery like wings of a bat. He noticed being stared at. He took the glass from her hands and put both glasses on a tray carried by a huge bold man. His arm sneaked around her waist again, as if it belonged there by rights. They were the last guests to move on.

Late Prince Doran's collection of old weaponry was at the same time less and more impressive than his birds.

Why have men invented so many different ways to hurt each other, Sansa thought, observing the exhibits in mute terror. Shells, bombs, pistols, guns, rifles, spades, sables, swords, knives, daggers, spears, lances, bows, crossbows, arrows, and many more smiled at Prince Doran's guests from the white washed walls. Sandor studied all of them intently. He forgot to kiss Sansa in the presence of so many deadly tools. They are his element, she understood, and Sansa had to content herself by holding his hand. At first he tried to relinquish her grip, but she wouldn't have it. She felt victorious when he flexed his hand over hers and kept it there as they walked.

"The guns are loaded and the blades are sharp," Sandor whispered to her. His words were serious but his tone sounded as a declaration of love. Sansa thought that Prince Doran's murderer probably didn't know this, or elsewise he could have killed the poor prince with something more elegant than a pitchfork, with a noble looking sable or an old sword. Sandor continued watching the weapons, and Sansa noticed that Prince Oberyn was watching them. It made her feel uneasy so she tried to focus on exhibits.

Of all the weapons she had seen, Sansa could use only one. An old rifle. Her brother Jon showed her how to load it and fire it. It was several years ago when she visited him in Canada. He was doing some peculiar survival training for the service. The trainees were allowed to use only those old rifles to shoot a moose, if it appeared in the back yard.

Finally, there was nothing else to see. The last ones to arrive to the second exhibition, Sandor and Sansa were among the last ones to leave.

Prince Oberyn stood at the exit. With a friendly smile, he reminded all his brother's guests that the dinner would be served in the garden that night. Under the stars. He played the amiable host all the time, but his eyes were black like tar. Haunted. Troubled. His wife smiled for him when he could not. Captain Hotah stood behind him, the butt of his long axe parked safely on the floor.

He truly mourns his brother, Sansa thought and her heart went to the noble prince in his sorrow.

Sandor wanted to sneak out past the princely couple, but Prince Oberyn caught Sansa by the wrist. "Mrs Clegane," he pronounced the name with acid, "I will give you what you seek on one condition."

"Oh," Sansa said, surprised that it was that easy in the end, "thank you so much. May I ask what is you wish of me?"

"Not of you," the prince shook his head.

Prince Oberyn looked to Captain Hotah for help. "Are you sure about this European custom, captain?" he said. The older grey bearded man nodded. He grasped his axe with one hand, and put the other one in his pocket. Mutely, he gave Prince Oberyn a pair of black gloves. Ellaria caught her husband's arm. "Darling," she said, "don't," she pleaded, "you told me you wouldn't."

Prince Oberyn threw a glove into Sandor's face.

This is not happening, Sansa thought about the books she loved as a little girl, the duels no longer exist in our time.

Sandor shook his head and his hair as a wet animal after bathing. "What do you want?" he asked of a prince. "My head? I have no intention to give it to you."

"A pity," Prince Oberyn said, "then your lovely wife will not get the passwords and the instructions she needs. Dornistan may burn. But so will some other place in your oh so civilised part of the world, if I'm not terribly mistaken."

"What do you want?" Sandor snarled. Sansa caught his right arm and squeezed it, hoping to calm him down. She didn't like him when he was angry. Whatever the reason behind it, Prince Oberyn and Sandor were able to bring out the worst in one another.

"Don't you know your own culture?" Prince Oberyn was flabbergasted. "A glove in your face means a duel."

"Tomorrow at dawn," the prince added eagerly. His suffering eyes sparkled with dark life for a brief moment. "Choose your weapon and your witness and wait for me in the garden."

"To the death?" Sandor asked, flatly.

"To the death," Prince Oberyn sounded as if he couldn't agree more.

Chapter Text

Spies 15

Sansa – night 3

The night was warm as cooling embers.

Sansa dreamed about the nights like this during endless winters and fresh summers in Oregon where she used to live with her family. Once she went with Jeyne for a vacation in Mexico. She liked the country a lot, but the weather was another disappointment; it had been too hot.

The Martell guests poured into the garden after an exhausting day like a school of fish swarming in the same pond. Sansa and Sandor lingered behind them all. He was extremely silent since the exhibition ended. Sansa felt superfluous. It was obvious he didn't want her near. Yet he wouldn't leave her side. Not when he accompanied her back to their room to change, nor now, at yet another society dinner. Sansa wore a pale yellow summer dress which barely covered her knees. The sleeves were tight and short, but the top was closed up to her neck. The soft fabric yielded and widened on her chest in several thin layers, just as she liked it. She didn't want anyone to tell her how her eyes were beautiful while staring at her teats, as it had happened so many times in the past.

Sandor seemed to be chewing on something in his thoughts. His brow was wrinkled, and his scars tense. It must be the challenge, the duel, she thought. When she found his hand, he did not take it back, scampering after her like a sentinel armoured in silence.

Sansa's phone chose that moment to buzz in her purse after three days of total silence. It was her father calling. So mother has told him about my marriage. She answered it, wishing to be done with it quickly. I'll explain them all after only two more days.

"Hi dad," she said.

"Sansa," her father sounded relieved to hear her voice. "Are you okay? Your mother has just received an email from her old friend, Mr Baelish. He claims you were in the news in Italy for being a suspect in a crime. Murder, he said."

"Mr Baelish must have misunderstood things," Sansa said quietly.

"And... Sansa..."

"Yes, dad?"

"Your mother told me..."

"About Sandor, I guess."

"Yes," her father sounded happy that she broached the subject so he didn't have to do it.

"He is brave and strong," Sansa said. "And gentle," she added. "You will like him when you meet him." She wasn't really sure of that last bit but it seemed like a good thing to say to a worried father over the phone.

"I hope so," her father said, suspicious, as he should be, Sansa guessed. I'd be suspicious if my daughter married an older guy all of a sudden. Hers was not the usual situation.

"I'll be back from Italy in three days," she offered. "Then we can talk some more."

"I'm going to Alaska tomorrow," her father said. "Mom will accompany me this time. Call us there or fly over to meet for the weekend."

The Stark family may have lived in Oregon, but the core of their fishing business was in Alaska.

"Okay, dad," Sansa said, "I'll do that."

"Take good care of yourself," father said.

"I will," Sansa promised, and then she hung up the phone. This was easier than I thought.

Sandor was still brooding and she wondered if he had been listening to her conversation with her father at all. Better not, she concluded. I had to say something nice about him. He knows it's not what I really think. She imagined presenting him to her father as... what? Her boyfriend?

The dark of the night was deep as grief.

Prince Oberyn and his wife, Lady Nymeria accompanied by male twins instead of a single husband and all other Dornish couples gathered together in the far end of the garden, as much away from the palace as possible. It was the first time since the party started that they didn't mingle with the other guests. They all wore yellow and pale orange. Scarlet red, the third Martell colour, was conspicuously absent. They all held lanterns made of bright orange or lemon yellow paper. The shades of the lamps were like soft papery wings, flapping gently on top. It looked as if the colours of light protected the burning of the living fire from the night's warm wind. A wooden plank on the bottom of each lantern embraced a candle in its tiny metal holder, a candle-boat, of sorts.

The garden ended with a large square fountain in front of the high back wall overgrown with climbing yellow and pale orange roses. The sculpture in the back of the fountain leaned on the bushes. It showed Jupiter or Zeus with his thunder, the father of ancient gods. Unlike most of the other statues, it didn't pea or eject water in any way.

"My brother is gone," Prince Oberyn said quietly. "Gone at the change of seasons," Ellaria echoed. "Gone to a better place where he can find water in the desert," Nymeria added. Every Dornish person said something nice about the deceased Prince. They would let their lanterns sail on the dark surface of the fountain when they said their words. Water soon glowered red and orange. The weak moon hid entirely behind the clouds, and the Dornish wept. Women wept freely as did most of the men. Prince Oberyn just stared at the water, eyes dry and dead.

At least he forgot about Sandor, Sansa thought. Why does he hate him so?

At length, Oberyn spoke. "Dear guests," he said, "do take your seats. We are here to celebrate the end of summer. My brother would wish us to continue, and he would bid us drink to his well being in the other world beyond this one."

"To Doran!" he exclaimed. "Whose life I am not likely to forget. And whose death I am not likely to forgive. Not to myself, not to his killer."

Oberyn gently set to sail the largest lantern of them all, a huge orange flower with yellow petals, burning brightly like a small sun on the blackness of the water.

Several guests who already took their seats joined Prince Oberyn in his toast. "To Doran!" champaign glasses clinked as one.

"You won't kill him, will you?" Sansa asked of her husband in the eyes of god, if not in her own eyes, strangely unafraid for his well-being in a coming duel.

"What do you want? That he kills me?" the sarcastic reply came her way. "And here I thought we were starting to get along."

It was not what Sansa wanted to hear, but at least he spoke to her again.

"There has to be another way," she said ignoring the mocking in his tone. "You are... you are..." she couldn't say what he was.

"A cold blooded murderer?" he supplanted, sounding as if he wanted to be helpful.

"No!" Sansa's anger flared because she could only take as much of her partner misunderstanding her on purpose after his sullen, frightening silence. "You are better than that! But if you insist in being just that, please, go ahead! Shoot him now! I'm sure you're carrying a gun or two on your person. That way we'll never be able to stop the destruction of his country!"

Sandor Clegane laughed. "You can be so pretty when you're angry," he said with queer appreciation. Sansa felt more flattered than with any other compliment she had been given before. Rebel words poured out of her before she could think them through. "Only when I'm angry?" she asked and was astonished by the deep tone of her voice. Normally she didn't sound anything like that.

Her partner suddenly showed great interest in Martell lanterns and mourning customs. He stared across the garden to the pool where the Dornish stood, united in their pain, letting the lights float like fairies flying over the water still as oil.

"Oberyn is genuinely sorry about his brother, I'll give him that," Sandor said, "and he doesn't mistreat his wife. So maybe he doesn't deserve to die." Sansa smiled. He won't do it. I knew that he wouldn't, she thought. "But neither do I," Sandor said harshly, "and if it's him or me, I will kill him. Believe that."

"Mr and Mrs Blackfyre," the herald announced at that moment, and not a moment too soon to end the awkward conversation they were having. The entrance from the palace to the garden was very close to Sandor and Sansa so they had to shut up. An extremely elderly couple scampered in. Both looked as if they were about to collapse and die, albeit from different causes. Mr Blackfyre was bald, plump and so fat he could barely move. He looked as if his heart was about to fail him at any moment. His cheeks and chin were thick layers of sagging skin, and he wore a tailor made lavender coloured suit. A womanly colour, Sansa realized. A vague of sweet perfume came to her from his direction, soft and sickening. It only had a touch of of sharpness to it, in order to qualify as a male, and not a female scent in a shop, Sansa guessed. Mrs Blackfyre was short, stooped and spotted on her face and hands. A black hat covered her elderly head and a black woollen dress her body. The night was so warm that Sansa could stand there naked, but the elderly lady shivered from cold and old age. She looked over one hundread years old and at least three times as old as her husband.

To Sansa's surprise, Mr Baelish was the first one to enthusiastically greet the strange couple.

"Well met," he said, "Mrs Blackfyre, Mr Blackfyre. May I join you for dinner? Our host is taken by grief, it may be some time before he resumes his role and greets you properly."

"Gladly, my friend," the fat man said and Sansa gaped in astonishment, recognising the familiar laziness in Mr Blackfyre's voice. It sounded different, yet somehow the same. He attacked me! He was with Brune! But he didn't smell so sweet back then... Mr Blackfyre noticed Sansa looking at him as if he possessed a seventh sense to hear her thoughts. "I do not believe we have met, Miss..." he said.

"N..n...no," Sansa stammered.

"This is our lovely Sansa Stark," Mr Baelish helped her with introduction. "My pardons, Sansa Clegane."

"And Mr Clegane, I see," Mrs Blackfyre said in a broken, centuries old voice. On a positive side, she sounded kind, and sincere, unlike her husband. "You no longer work for Mr Lannister, do you, young man?"

"I worked for him only very briefly as a twelve years old boy," Sandor informed with uncharacteristic politeness. He was almost docile, which in itself shocked Sansa.

"My memory is the only thing that still serves me more or less well," the elderly lady said with certain pride. "Mr Baelish," she pleaded, "please show me to our table, my poor old legs are about to betray me..."

"As you wish," Baelish said as if it was the last thing he wanted to do, but he didn't dare refuse her.

As soon as they were half the garden away, Mr Blackfyre changed his face expression. It almost looked sharp.

"You," Sandor told him then, with blatant disbelief and anger. Sansa couldn't understand if he was angry because of her, Mr Blackfyre or himself.

"Me," Mr Blackfyre agreed. His voice was harsh as Sansa remembered it, when he discussed with Mr Baelish the doom of Dorne.

"Why?" Sandor said.

"You tell me," Mr Blackfyre was not one for explanations. And he had difficulty moving his left shoulder, it was plain to see. "I should join my wife. Enjoy your dinner, Mrs Clegane, Mr Clegane."

It was good that he left because the sweetness of his perfume was going to make Sansa faint. She faced her partner and banged him with both hands on his chest. He was in league with the people who were after her, just like Petyr, who claimed to be her mother's friend. Sansa had no friends in the world outside her family. Only people who wanted something from her.

Sandor caught both her hands above his heart and stopped them from moving.

"Do you believe me after last night?" he asked. "At least a little bit?"

"No," she shook her head.

"It's not what you think," he said.

"Then what is it?" she was on a verge of shouting and scaring other guests.

Sandor caught her head with both his hands and pulled her forward. She thought he was going to kiss her again, but he only buried his face in her hair and whispered to one of her ears. "It's Varys," he said. "Don't look at him now!" his whisper was almost a cry as he kept her head in place to stop her from moving. "I shot him in the shoulder, just like Brune, I didn't recognise him on time," the words came mingled with kisses on her earlobe and on her neck.

"But you could have..."

"Killed him?" the whisper was a rasp. "Yes. I guess that's why he trained me not to kill when it was not necessary. And he especially warned me not to kill too many people abroad. He must have known he'd come under cover as well..."

"Does it mean we failed?" Sansa asked cautiously. "We didn't find on time what we were looking for, did we?"

"No," Sandor said darkly, "it just means that the shit is deeper than we thought."

No more business of any kind was discussed during dinner. They shared a table with Mr and Mrs Blakcfyre, Mr Baelish and his wife, and the little Lady Ermesande and her husband. Petyr's wife turned out to be a mad lady in her late thirties slobbering over him. Her name was Lysa, like her mother's sister who had run away from her good old husband with some pop singer. Mr Baelish tried to send her back to their room to rest on several occasions, but she always refused and continued to smile at him and at Mr Blackfyre. She pointedly ignored Sandor. When Sandor went to the men's room, she said to Sansa, with compassion. "How could you marry that beast?" she asked. "Is he that ugly in bed as well?" she giggled. "My sweet Petyr is so much more handsome... And skilled." She winked at her thin husband who looked sickened by her attentions. And who was not as handsome as Lysa claimed.

I don't know what Sandor is like in bed. Sansa reddened. "My husband is a good man," she offered, wishing to be one hundred percent certain. The fact was, she was not. She still didn't believe that Mr Blackfyre was Varys. The Varys she knew was a strong man with brown hair wearing a smart grey suit; they had met briefly before Sansa boarded a plane for Venice. Then again, the spider has many disguises, Jon had warned her. Maybe he was right.

There was one way to check. "Mrs Blackfyre," Sansa started, "I wonder, what did my husband do when you met him? We are just married, and he's reluctant to talk about his past."

"He would be, wouldn't he?" Mrs Blackfyre's voice
sounded like death throes. "Poor lad. He was very young then. His brother was a head of security in Mr Lannister's company and young Sandor was occasionally helping, two hours per week or so, after school. Until that terrible tragedy with his brother, of course."

Sandor was seething, seated on the other side of the table from Sansa, between Varys (if that was him) and Ermesande and her doll. The hosts graciously separated the couples along the tables for the dinner, as if they had hoped the arrangement was going to make all their guests unhappy for the duration of the evening, and cause them to be in a proper mood for mourning. The approach worked miracles with Sandor, it seemed.

"Of course," Sansa said. As his wife, she was supposed to know all about the tragedy. It would be imprudent to ask further questions. Mr Blackfyre decided to help her then, as if he sought to confirm his identity.

"Oh my, what a tragedy it was," he drooled. "Mr Clegane is now with us, so he must have paid his debt to the society. Do you still remember, dear wife," he addressed the wizened woman about to die on a chair next to Sansa, "he refused to speak in court. Silence was his defence."

Sansa could understand that. They didn't believe him when his brother burned him. Why would he expect them to believe him later on?

The old woman nodded, and Mr Blackfyre dropped the subject until Mrs Baelish started kissing Mr Baelish squarely on his mouth. She had to stretch all over the table to do that. Her too opulent breasts dipped in uneaten spicy red sauce as she did that, a special treat of Dornistan. Petyr closed both his eyes and his mouth to suffer through the ordeal. He was not paying attention to anything.

At that moment, Mr Blackfyre shot a look of expectation at Sansa.

"My husband doesn't speak much," Sansa commented. "That much is true."

"Well, sometimes he should, my dear," Varys said, imperceptibly changing his voice to match the voice of the Varys Sansa had met, although with a different face. "Sometimes he really should."

The night was beautiful as sin.

The meal was ending, and only half-empty wine glasses were left on the table. Lady Ermesande puked on Mr Baelish. Apparently the red sauce did not sit well with children. Mrs Blackfyre offered him a black handkerchief to clean himself. Sansa wondered if it was made of wool. Tyrek, Ermesande's husband, was nowhere to be seen.

The lanterns still sailed for dead Prince Doran. It was very late. The guests scattered in the garden like lantern bugs, some standing, some still seated. The Martells and their people withdrew for the night. Sansa walked toward the lights, wishing to be alone. But her shadow was always with her.

"No good night kisses for me tonight?" Sandor asked, ironic again. "I could die tomorrow, you know."

"And if I kiss you, you won't?" Sansa said, tired, tired, tired.

He was behind her, a warm puff of air over her shoulders, warm arms over her belly. The tiredness vanished. She struggled in his embrace to turn around and face him.

"I still might," he said.

Their room seemed too far away. He held her so tight that she thought she would be warm even if they immersed themselves in the fountain. The idea of night swimming was disquieting and his presence was rapidly becoming more than she could handle. Just like the night before when she had ended up kissing him. We could shower together. The thought was unseemly, but once it was born, it could not be easily set aside. He seemed to read her thoughts like Varys before him. I'm not a spook, she thought. Why am I even trying? I should have stayed back home and taken an office job. His embrace turned stronger if that was possible at all. Lights twinkled on the water, lonely, some dying out.

"You are hurting me," Sansa complained. It was not what she wanted to say.

"Am I?" he asked and she wouldn't give him an answer.

Later she would not remember how they walked to one of the niches in the garden she hadn't seen before. It was not the one with mermaids where Prince Oberyn hanged Sandor. It was a quiet rounded space where a winged curly-haired stone angel spurted water through a long flute he was playing, on top of a high marble pillar in a circular basin surrounded by blue stones. No other guests were in evidence.

"Here?" she said.

"No open closets here," he said. "No people. And no lights."

It was a bit too dark for Sansa's liking. Dark wisps of clouds roamed over the black sky, hiding most of the stars, and the lanterns burning for Prince Doran were half a garden away. It was not a prudent question, but she wanted to know. "Is this how you pick up all your girls? You take them some place dark so that you wouldn't have to see them?"

He gave an incredulous laugh. "Mostly I don't want to see them as much as they don't want to see me. It works both ways. Didn't pick up one for a while. But old habits die hard."

"And me?"

He retreated several steps away from her, skulking in the dark.

"I've seen too much of you already," his voice was different, thick with pain and remorse. "I'm not good for you," he stated, as if in defence.

And I haven't seen anywhere near enough of you, Sansa decided. She made a step closer to him, not saying a word.

There was a bench, wood or stone, Sansa could not tell. He sank on it and pulled her down with him. His lips spread in a most likely ugly thin smile, right next to hers. She couldn't see them very well, but she was certain that they felt much better than they looked. It was this day, Sansa concluded. One step at the time they came one step too far, and they made one step too much. It was the small accidental touches, the even smaller smiles, his antics with birds and their feathers. It was the awful things he sometimes said. And all the other things forever left unspoken. In his lap she was taller than him and there was no mistake as to what he wanted them to do. It was not like Sansa to have sex with a man who picked her up on some party and she frequently liked kisses and caresses more than the deed itself. But now she was a lantern too, and she was on fire. She wanted no more kisses.

"Please," she said and pressed herself closer. She couldn't say any more.

It didn't take him long.

It came suddenly and it was exactly what she wanted, an immediate possession. Surprising, lethal and mind-stopping. It didn't even matter if he left her in the morning. Or maybe it did, but not right now. It was lasting longer than she expected, or shorter, or it was just right, she didn't know. Before this, Sansa never knew desire as simple as thirst, with no yesterdays, and no tomorrows.

In the middle of it, he stopped, not parting from her.

"What's wrong?" she said from above, staring in his eyes, trying to see his face in the gloom of vague starlight and distant lanterns. She saw ridges and shadows, and grey eyes gleaming like water, vulnerable before they smiled.

"There's nothing wrong with some good old fashioned sex," he said.

The moon had vanished that night, and no one was watching.

Chapter Text

He woke well before dawn with a taste of promise in his mouth.

His dark blue shirt was a smudge on the floor, as was her fancy yellow dress. The two garments were entangled as the two of them in bed. He didn't want to move not to disturb her breathing.

He didn't know where any of his guns were, and that, in itself, was much more disturbing. It hasn't happened in two decades, ever since he started his training with the service. Sandor Clegane stared at the stuccoed white ceiling of the Martell mansion wondering, wondering... Sansa's head was stuck under his missing ear, one perfect cheek on his large shoulder, warm as summer evening. The morning after tasted much more intensive than his secret fantasies; peaceful, domestic, quiet. She is at ease with me, he thought. Unbelievable. He wondered what she would do if he kissed her awake.

He supposed it was a pity that their arrangement would not last. She was a grown-up girl and she must have wanted some fun. It wouldn't be the first time that a woman went to bed with him to satisfy her curiosity.

But none of them ever fell asleep leaning on the missing, melted half of his face.

Grey predawn gloom conquered the garden when a faint knock came from the door. Sandor bolted. Seated in bed, he took a good whiff of the surroundings. Sansa immediately stirred.

"Hey," she murmured so softly, grabbing him from behind. Slender arms curled around his chest. Bony chin pressed on his naked back, eyelashes batting on his shoulder. Sandor smiled involuntarily, forgetting how hideous the gesture would make him. "What's up? Who is it?" she asked, drowsily.

An even softer, fragrant voice smelling of danger passed through the closed door. "It would be my honour to be your witness in the coming duel as we agreed last night, Mr Clegane," Varys said for all the ears listening. The hollow closet stank of them, two pairs at least.

"You heard Mr Blackfyre, my dear," Sandor rasped, gaining consciousness that the only thing he wore was a wide, ugly grin. "Time to answer the Prince's challenge." As gently as he could, he set her hands aside, ashamed of his fantasies about the girl who was only his unlikely partner for this task, soon to be gone from his life.

In several spare movements of his large exposed body over the scarcely furnished room, he burrowed into the bathroom with a change of clean, black clothing under his arm, terribly embarrassed to face any of them; his bosses banging on the door, the Martell infantile spies in the wardrobe, and Sansa most of all.

When he emerged out again, somewhat calmer, Sansa was clutching the sheet up to her neck. Her normally pale face turned whiter than the bed linen, with the exception that it was still better smelling. The sheets caught the odour of the two of them, shamelessly so. The Hound was immensely glad that Varys's and Aemon's olfactory senses were nowhere near as acute as his own.

"A sabre, if I may make a suggestion," Varys said to Aemon over Sandor's head as if he hadn't been there. The very old man was dressed as an old woman in repulsive muddy greens, in unpleasant contrast with his aged blue-violet eyes. The good thing of the disguise was that no one would recognise Aemon Targaryen, a venerable celebrity in the world of spying.

"There are several fine specimens of curved sabres from the Ottoman Empire right above us. The sharpest ones are those widening towards the edge of the blade," Aemon approved the notion, adjusting his wise voice to his old lady cover. "The 15th century one in purple scabbard would do admirably, I think."

"Isn't that dangerous?" Sansa inquired politely.

"Oh my," Varys said. "The lady is awake. You know your husband, my dear. What do you think will happen if he chooses a pistol, let's say?"

Sansa, the clever little bird, lowered her big blue eyes. "I see," she said.

"Fine with me. A curved sabre," Sandor voiced his agreement.

"Honey," Sansa said and he could hear falseness in her voice. It made him bitter. "May I have some privacy now?"

"Sure," Sandor muttered and politely forced his bosses out in the corridor.

Aemon lifted his greenish purse. It said "no more casualties" on the bottom. Varys reproachfully moved his wounded shoulder. Faster than it appeared, Aemon's instruction was gone. The bag looked very expensive, handmade, most likely of snake skin. Sandor wondered why the old Targaryen would wear such a thing. Surely there were cheaper accessories the service could provide.

Sansa was out in a second. Sandor didn't know women could actually dress that fast. She took his hand and squeezed it, her palm sweaty as it had never been before, since she started the habit of holding his hand.

"I had fencing lessons in my youth, I'll be fine," he told her. It was the last thing his father did for him before he died. Sandor was not six years old yet, but his father lied at the club that the boy was eight. Everyone believed it because of his size so they took him in. Gregor continued paying for the lessons for two years, mostly because he was too stupid to understand all the bills he was getting. But as soon as Gregor figured that his little brother was having those fancy lessons, he stopped the payment, and that was the end of it. The Hound never practised again.

Sandor wished to say something else to Sansa, something... encouraging... but he couldn't think of anything. Why? She doesn't care for you. She only wanted some good time. Mostly such motivation was fine with him. A good fuck was all he was interested in. Was it?

"Oh," Sansa sighed. Sandor startled as if she could have heard the rubbish of his thoughts. "It's good to hear you had those lessons," she added, as if it was actually good to hear. And she wouldn't let go of his hand all the way to the bloody garden, performing a loving wife farce to the extreme. He blinked and wished it was all true. He imagined she loved him and squeezed her hand back. It was almost as good as the real thing.

Oberyn was already there, pacing impatiently up and down, with Anders Yronwood at his side. The man was almost as tall as the Hound. Varys hurried to communicate the choice of weapon to Oberyn's huge witness and the Martells' servants hurried to the second floor to fetch the blades. There were dark blue circles under Oberyn's eyes and he looked as if he hadn't slept since he came to Italy. I should be able to knock him down, Sandor thought. It should be a piece of cake.

To Sandor's surprise, Prince Oberyn was given a long spear, some kind of traditional Dornish weapon. It was in the paperwork Varys had given them, no doubt. A six foot long pole of wood with a sharp iron tip. The steel glittered in the shy pink light of the early morning. The Hound's boss instantly complained. "Shouldn't His Excellency wield a sabre as well?" Complaining sat well with Varys. He was a natural.

Oberyn retorted with disdain. "I took Mr Clegane for many things, but not for a coward."

Sansa never let go of his hand, palm manifestly shaking now.

"Have it your way," Sandor grunted, giving in to the rapidly growing demands of his ego. Angered, he plucked his hand out of Sansa's.

Aemon rattled the snake purse noisily, and got out a comb for the three white hairs growing behind his ears, under the silly green female hat he wore. Unnecessary, Sandor registered, wondering about the purpose of the gesture.

I should be able to cut his spear in half and end this, Sandor thought, unsheathing the sabre. The scabbard reminded him of the purple casing of Sansa's laptop. He chased the deconcentrating thought away and focused on his opponent. His Buggering Excellency will change his mind when it's the end of his little life we're contemplating, and not mine. He had witnessed so often how courage faded in the face of death.

You could also tell him what he wants to know, a timid inner voice suggested in his head. And for the first time in Sandor's life his consciousness sounded like another person. Like Sansa.

He turned around to see her standing between Aemon and Baelish, as far away as possible from Varys and Yronwood. You can actually trust Varys, he wanted to shout at her, but he couldn't. There were too many guests watching, and more were coming out from the palace with every passing moment. Early breakfast held no interest for anyone, it seemed.

Prince Oberyn Nymeros Martell and Sandor Clegane the Hound stood alone in a broad circle made of people, on the crossing of the two wide main pathways in the middle of the garden. The ground was sand and minuscule cobblestones under their feet, firm enough to fight on. There was just enough light, even if the sun was still invisible, its face hanging very low in the sky, hidden behind the mansion walls.

Shit, he remembered. I never told Sansa I had found her in Baelish's car in Venice. It was not that he didn't want to. Well, maybe he didn't, at first, fearing a hysterical reaction about the betrayal of her mother's friend. But later on he shared most of his work related thoughts with her, yet he had totally forgotten to mention that rather significant detail. Varys should withhold half of my yearly salary, or simply fire me, he thought. I'm getting old and careless. There must be younger lads in the juvenile prison waiting for a chance to prove their worth and commute their sentence for the community service.

Yronwood spoke firmly. "One more step back Mr Clegane, please."

He moved to the required distance to start the duel. He faced the main wing of the palace. Oberyn, on the contrary, could see the garden, the niches and the great fountain where the lanterns had burned in the night for dead Prince Doran, murdered in cold blood, and bloody far away from the hot sands of his home. It was for the good. Sandor didn't think that the glimpse of the bench where he started loving Sansa would help his concentration. Not at all.

Varys gave a signal that they could start.

Sandor launched forward ferociously with a curved wide end of the ancient blade he was using. He started for the wood close to the top of the spear, anxious to hack the iron tip off. Oberyn darted swiftly aside. The prince wore only scarlet red today, a ridiculous pair of tights and a tunic. A flimsy mantle of long stretches of thin red fabric was streaming behind his back and flapping over his thighs. It hid the place where his body should be, if Sandor were aiming for it. Which he was not.

In another rush, the Hound almost succeeded to cut the spear in two, but in the last second, Oberyn danced away. The tip of the spear grazed Sandor's black long-sleeved T-shirt on his shoulder, but it didn't penetrate the skin.

Or rather, the iron did not, but the smell did. It invaded the dog's senses with its strange sweetness. Unnatural as Sansa's head resting on his scars. A rare poison, the Hound suspected. He rapidly brought a sabre to the place where his shoulder had been. The spear retreated. Sandor jumped away, sweating.

So it was most likely snakes and not lost treasures our prince had been searching for in South America, Sandor thought. He attacked again, pretending to be careless, to test the theory. Oberyn avoided the blow, and lowered the spear. Instead of trying to kill him, or best him in any imaginable way, he merely tried to push the tip in Sandor's bad leg. Sandor stumbled, feigning to be stung.

What is it, Oberyn, that you want to inject me with? he wondered. An extraordinary poison or an illegal truth serum to ease your tortured mind? He staggered, falling to his knees, to see how his opponent would react. He felt the half healed wound on his leg tear open again from the brusque movement. There must have been blood trickling down his trousers. Oberyn eyed the Hound's leg with utmost satisfaction, and then he spoke.

"Admit your crime, and I shall spare you. I shall deliver you to your country justice, you have my word," Oberyn said with the unforgiving, judging, pig-headed righteousness Sandor simply hated in people. And His Excellency had more on his mind. "I know what you did. You raped my sister!" he accused Sandor.

It was a wrong thing to say. Sandor lurched forward like a wounded bear even if the only thing hurt had been his feelings. I am no monster, he thought. I just look like one, thanks to Gregor.

A whirlwind of offended muscle and bone, the Hound tossed the sabre away, passed under the spear of his opponent and roared. A beast on the loose, the Hound pushed his head and one of the shoulders in the mass of scarlet textile in front of him. Oberyn collapsed in the thin garden dust, and Sandor was right on top of him. He plucked the spear from the hands of the Dornish prince as if it were a toothpick, threw it away, and sat on Oberyn's chest.

"Don't say that ever again!" he spat, hands seizing His Excellence's tiny, noble neck with tremendous fury. He wondered how it would feel if he squashed Oberyn's head to the point of bursting.

"You raped my sister," Oberyn whispered stubbornly with the air that remained in his lungs. "Admit it."

I need to shut up his lying mouth, Sandor thought and squeezed harder. His mind was in a blur, harbouring a single certainty. I never raped anyone. That was Gregor.

"You raped my sister," Oberyn squeaked. His olive coloured face darkened. It turned bluish like a mist that still hung over the garden grass. Sandor took a moment to admire the hue before he felt fat powdered hands clutching his shoulders from his back.

"Mr Clegane," Varys said, his voice perfumed as his hands. "Sandor... it has been quite enough." But the Hound wouldn't listen. He needed the light to go out of the lying prince's eyes.

Tell him, the inner voice said. Tell them.

He could feel curious eyes of the guests on his ruined face, eager to witness another murder. "They arrested an innocent man for killing Prince Doran," someone said. "My husband confessed yesterday," Cersei Lannister said, offended. "Here's the murderer," a woman's voice said, sounding like the cow Baelish had for wife.

"You... raped..." the Dornish prince was about to lose consciousness. Tell him, Sansa said in Sandor's head. Baby, she pleaded with the Hound. She had called him that the night before when she had let him love her. You're better than that.

"...raped..." the prince peeped, barely audible.

Sandor's grip on his throat relented although he didn't let him go. Prince Oberyn sucked some air in his lungs and opened his mouth to repeat the accusation.

"I never raped anyone!" Sandor bellowed out loud for all to hear before Oberyn could speak again. The ghost was out of the bottle, and there was no way of stopping the words which have laid down buried for too long.

"When I was a twelve years old boy, I was helping with security in Tywin Lannister's dog food industries as you well know. My late brother, Gregor, he was thirteen years older, and he was head of security by that time. Your late brother, Doran, wanted to invest in that company. To differentiate his assets in the west. Only it was the wrong company to buy. But Doran couldn't have known that, could he? You see, Mr Lannister, he hates immigrants and he hates foreigners. He would've never let his company be bought by one such as Doran Martell. No matter how noble, or how rich. So he decided to teach Doran a lesson. Your sister, Elia, she came to England to study anthropology, or some other such unimportant subject. She could afford it, so who cared if her studies were useful or not. She was young. She came from London to visit Lannister dog food industries, to seal the business deal Doran proposed. Only that there was no deal, but she didn't know that, did she?

Old Tywin was not even there. He told Gregor to scare her in such a way that Doran would back on his offer. Elia would then return to her country where she belonged. Tywin didn't know what Gregor did to scare women. How could he? Few people had known and I was one of them.

All this I figured later on... Because on that day I was twelve and I had no idea what was about to happen. It was lunch break and I was alone at the reception desk when Elia came looking for Tywin. I let her in Tywin's office and brought her a lemonade. She couldn't quite look at my ugly face, but she thanked me all the same.

I returned to the desk and waited. An hour passed by and I was bored. Tywin had another entrance to his office, one that wouldn't involved passing me. I don't know why I even looked at the security camera showing Tywin's office, I was not supposed to look at that, ever. What I saw set my blood to boiling. I took a gun I was not supposed to carry either, but there was always one hidden in the desk, and I knew how to use it since I was ten.

When I came to Tywin's office, Gregor had his hands around Elia's neck. Just like my hands are now on your scrawny throat, Your Excellency," Sandor spat out the honorific title and paused to gain breath.

"He dwarfed her as I am dwarfing you. He was about to throttle Elia as soon as he would finish that other piece of business he troubled himself with between her legs. That's what he sometimes did to whores, you know, kill them, or try his best to kill them while he was at it. But Tywin Lannister hated whores as much or more than he hated immigrants so he never bothered to know what Gregor did to them. And my late brother was so intent on what he was doing that he never saw me coming.

I aimed squarely at his big, ugly head and pulled a trigger. I wasn't strong enough to stop him in any other way, believe me, and I have never missed a shot. Not then, not now.

Elia screamed when Gregor's head turned into ruin. It was good, it meant the air was coming back in her lungs, just like it's now coming back to yours."

The Hound released his grip on Oberyn completely. Lost, he sat on dust next to the nobleman of Dornistan. He couldn't see Sansa from that angle. Drunk on memories, he couldn't stop talking if it meant his life. And the life in Oberyn's black eyes glittered like a falling star.

"I dropped my weapon and ran to Elia," the Hound said, letting himself remember, after all the years. "I pulled Gregor's body away from her while she was still screaming. I only wanted to help her, nothing else... At first, she gave me her hand. But then she saw my pretty face from close up, just like you admired it a moment ago.

She flinched, she took her hands to herself and covered her eyes. And then she wailed and sobbed. She sounded mad. She begged me to go away. She called me an ugly monster. She called me a twisted demon from some hell you Dornish believe in, who had come to rape her after Gregor was done. I don't know what she all called me any more, but none of it was nice, I tell you.

So I forced her down on her back, on Tywin's couch, to check that she was not wounded, as she screamed and screamed. Your sister was fortunate. He only forced her and I found them before he was done. I'm not saying that it was a nice, cozy thing he did to her, but at least he didn't cut her, or burn her as he often did with whores. I should know, I helped a few of them when I could.

Elia sobbed and called me a murderer when I called the ambulance. I waited to hear them coming, and then I left. I couldn't listen to her accusations any longer. I'm really sorry that it was not prince charming who came to save your sister. Only me. You should know the rest."

The words were all out and he had nothing more to say.

His hands hung limp next to his body, and a pair of black eyes so much like Elia's stared at him, unflinching, appeased. Varys and Aemon pulled the Hound jointly on his feet. Aemon's head bobbed and his wrinkled arms lacked strength in the past thirty years. They would never have succeeded if he didn't feel so hollow and abandoned that he let them do.

Legs clad in scarlet tights stood up as well, full of fresh vigour. "I didn't stab you, did I?" Oberyn inquired with genuine concern.

"I don't think so," he answered, feeling dizzy from his confession and fresh loss of blood.

"Come," Oberyn said and led the way forward.

They were taking him somewhere, in a maze of colours, smells, voices and emotions. The walls were glass. The apartments of the Martells, he realised. Varys and Aemon were left behind, on the outside. It was only him, and Oberyn, and Yronwood, Lady Nymeria and her twins in the room. Yronwood smelled wrong from close by. He attacked Lady Nym when we came nosing around after Prince Doran's death, Sandor realised, uncertain what to do with that new piece of knowledge. She knew him. Why?

"Here," a glass of red wine was put in front of him. He was not supposed to drink but he still did. It was sour and it tasted good. Three sips were more than enough.

"Nym, daughter, check him out", Oberyn commanded. "Both shoulders and both legs. We should administer the antidote immediately if I did touch him."

Sandor let himself be examined even if the lady's hands on his body were not the ones he so ardently desired.

"He's clean," Nymeria announced, "he has a nasty looking stab wound on his leg, but it's a few days old, not made by you."

"Why didn't you tell anyone?" Prince Oberyn asked the Hound, perplexed. "It would have been beneficial for you."

"I don't know," Sandor said. Because no one would have believed a twisted ugly demon. They didn't believe the deformed little boy, why would they believe a grown lad? He took another sip of wine. "I tried to tell your brother in Venice," he added, remembering his attempt at the entrance to the ball. "Not in so many words, but I did. I said that what I did was to the benefit of your family. He wouldn't listen."

"Here," Lady Nym said, placing an open laptop next to the wine glass. "Our part of the bargain. You are logged in the network of our armed forces and you can look for clues."

Sandor stared at the blue screen polluted with some icons. Slowly, he turned around and measured the entire room.

"Not me," he said. "Not by myself. Where is my wife? I thought she would have followed us here..."

Prince Oberyn looked at the twins, and waved them out with a stern commanding gesture. Don't return without her, the black eyes had said, wordlessly. The twins bolted out to find Sansa. Sandor stared at the screen some more, waiting for the soft sound of her steps. She will be happy about this, he thought, but no one came for a long time.

A frightened woman servant was ushered in instead of Sansa at last. The same one who had found Prince Doran dead. The twins were hiding from Oberyn's wrath down the corridor, behind the open door.

"Your Excellency," the woman stuttered, "I wouldn't wish to be the bearer of bad news all the time, but..."

"Where is my wife?" Sandor interrupted, dreading the answer. How much time did I spend with my memories? he blamed himself.

"I don't know, sir," the woman shook her head. "We looked for her everywhere. But she's nowhere to be found."

Chapter Text

He almost got drunk on Dornish red. Almost but not quite.

He never knew that the stuff was so potent or so vile. The European wines he was used to could not compare.

"My brother's house is now yours as much as it is mine," Oberyn had announced. And so was the wine cellar, it seemed, if he had been interested.

He wasn't.

He only wanted to find Sansa.

The Hound passed Varys in the never-ending, long, straight corridors of the Martell manor several times. The vaguely powdered lips of his powerful boss tittered. "Tsk, tsk," he said, scowling at his best agent's apparent condition. "Ah, these youngsters of today, they only care for parties and drinks, wouldn't you agree, Mr Baelish?"

Baelish looked offended because he had not been included in the category of the young. He was on Varys's arm more often than not, or more often than Aemon, who posed as his wife and trotted behind them as fast as he could. Given his advanced age, it was not going very well with the brilliant old spy. Aemon was left puffing and panting from exertion, green snake purse waving around Baelish in all possible angles. Even so, he would not relent. This told the Hound all he needed to know. Both his bosses were keeping more than an eye on Baelish. The weak looking moron must be more dangerous than he looks. They were mercilessly tailing him since the duel, which was both good and bad. Good because it incapacitated Baelish, and bad because the Hound could not talk freely to either Aemon or Varys. He had to figure out the shitty details they already knew all by himself. In such moments he would have wished for a partner to work with even if it were Joffrey Baratheon.

But discussing things with Sansa would be so much better.

"I'm so sorry for your loss," Baelish said to Sandor with genuine emotion. Apparently kidnapping women put him in an affectionate mood. He even offered the Hound his help in locating Sansa. Then he whispered to Aemon, but the dog had heard it all, as usual. "It's no wonder. Poor girl. It must not go easy on her to be married to such a difficult man. Imagine all the traumas he must have been through at such young age! What was he, twelve, when he killed his evil brother? It might be she came to her senses and left him while she could."

"Poor sod, I should say," Varys murmured complacently, nodding knowingly towards the Hound. "Losing her won't go easy on him either." Aemon gave Sandor a look which begged him to keep calm. It was a good thing that Sandor had known and trusted his boss for more than twenty years or he would have broken his perfumed jaw then and there and thought about the consequences later.

He was getting in a mood to slice Baelish with every passing moment. The curved sabre would do a fine job for him. In his guts, he had no doubt that the ugly skinny man was responsible for Sansa's disappearance. He had seen him whisper some poison in his wife's ears way before the duel went out of hand, with the Hound's tearful admission of things he had sworn never to tell anyone. She's not really your wife, the little voice said. No, he thought, she's the Little Bird, the Hound's partner in this mess.

The rationalization didn't make him love her any less.

Aemon and Varys never left Baelish alone since the duel so he couldn't have done anything in person. And Sansa had allegedly told her mother's false friend that she could not watch the fighting any more before she left. Such a sensitive young woman, Baelish drooled as the kindest person on earth. I imagined she would return to her room to wait for her dearest husband. The Little Bird's kidnapper shrugged as if he didn't know more. His grey-green eyes twinkled, laughing at Sandor. The story stank of a lie. But the dog's gut feelings were never a proof of anything. And as strong as they might have been, they would not bring Sansa back.

Varys frowned some more at Sandor's drinking, but the Hound did not care. The bottle in his hands was empty, but he didn't let it show. He had drunk enough, and the rest was farce. Doran Martell's real killer and Baelish's helper or helpers were on the loose. It might be useful to look a bit less like a bloody murderer he was. It could give him an advantage if he had to kill someone tonight.

Walking around the palace was nasty business. Sandor Clegane politely declined all company of curious guests inquiring about his beautiful wife or patting his back for being unjustly imprisoned in his youth. The gossip spread faster than the fire which burned him, and grew out of all proportions. The people who had witnessed the duel started behaving as if he were some bloody hero.

He wasn't a hero.

A hero would have found Sansa.

The Hound had walked through every corridor and every room of the mansion, sniffing. He mercilessly pried on guests in their rooms, finding them in all kinds of activities, from innocuous to unsavoury, varying from board games to happy snoring, and to all imaginable and unimaginable forms of intimacy. An elderly lady slept peacefully with her cat, not minding the mop of hair in her mouth, while her husband was fishing in one of the fountains. That's what thirty years of marriage would do to you, he thought, slightly disgusted. But you would fish in that pond too, wouldn't you, if that was what Sansa required to stay with you. You'd even offer her a cat, and pay for cat food.

He squatted and crawled through the labyrinth in-between the floors with one of the Martells child servants as a guide. He checked around the many fountains and niches in the garden. He harassed Oberyn to take him through the private parts of the mansion belonging to his family and searched the servants quarters and the kitchens on the ground floor. Nothing worked.

He would make another round, in hope he had missed something.

An then another, and then another. For as long as it took. This was about Sansa, the job be damned.

The child-spouse, Ermesande, begged him to look for Tyrek when he checked their room the second time. "Maybe he liked your wife better, she's so beautiful," the girl said, "I am small and you are..." Don't tell me. I'm ugly, the Hound thought, I know.

"You are fearsome," the girl said instead.

Professionalism somehow made its way through the very mild alcohol haze in his mind and a wild jumble of chaotic feelings in his heart. "When did you last see your husband?" he asked.

"Yesterday evening before my tummy hurt," Ermesande said, "he went to look at some flowers. He said that they opened in the night and he was tugging at his face."

The alarm bell rang in Sandor's head, shrill and ominous as a siren announcing an air strike. "Tugging at his face? Are you certain? Did he do that more often?"

"Sometimes," the child said. "When he would put me to sleep at our home. I have lovely pink curtains around my bed to dream better. But I like some TV shows for big people, the funny ones, so I peek under the curtain to watch them with Tyrek. He doesn't know. He thinks I'm such a child." And he's right, Sandor thought, keeping his thoughts for himself.

"Did his face change?" Sandor inquired, striving not to show his growing apprehension. He didn't want to scare the girl more than his frightening figure already did. So now we know exactly who killed Prince Doran, he thought, and he may have looked as Robert Baratheon at that moment. But we have no idea who has offered Doran's name for the gift of mercy...

"I think so," Ermesande scratched her little head. Her arms squeezed a teddy bear she sleept with. "His eyes sometimes changed from green to hazel and his hair from gold to ember. I thought it was the light..."

"I will look for your husband," Sandor promised, without any intention to do so. He didn't think the girl would ever see Tyrek again. And it was probably for a better.

Half way down some corridor, which looked exactly the same as a dozen other corridors he had passed with no trace of Sansa, he bumped into Oberyn and Anders Yronwood.

"Mr Clegane," the prince said, "please, come with us."

Come with us was a cold room with no more wine, a very sober looking prince and a defeated giant of Yronwood.

"Someone sent out pictures of the bird exposition as it should have been placed," Oberyn said, terribly embarrassed, "from my personal email account, somehow," he added. His English was failing him and his voice was hoarse. "And trust me that the stuff is not in my sent items. The false messages went out to all Dornish couples here, as well as to Cersei Lannister and some of her friends my brother had invited. It seems every targeted couple got an image of one room, not the entire exposition. I was asking them to make sure that everything stayed as it looked on pictures. For the honour of Dornistan, or for the sake of our friendship in case of the non-Dornish... I also asked my compatriots to support me in succession of my brother against his daughter, Arianne, who is his legitimate heir. I'd never do a thing like that. I am replacing Doran only for this event because Arianne is not here. There was one other person in a hidden copy of my supposed e-mail. My friend Anders decrypted it somehow. I have no idea who he is. His name is Janos Slynt."

Janos Slynt was the idiot in charge of constructing the experimental anti-missile shield to be deployed in Europe. Fortunately, he only supervised the works, and didn't actually work on the project. The man was convinced that the west was too mild towards the threats in the big wide world, and that the right way forward was to annihilate any country suspected to harbour terrorists. Dornistan was not such country. But it was a foreign country and Slynt was cruel and stupid. Someone probably paid him well to sell out the shield research, and still convinced Slynt he was giving away state secrets for the good of the country. Varys was going to be thrilled with that little piece of information. He had been trying to tell the old General Selmy that Colonel Slynt was a moron for years.

The Hound believed that the shield was being constructed in a base in Azores, but the necessary research was conducted in some places in England and France as well. He wondered which of the three locations would have been targeted by the belligerent groups in the neighbourhood of Dornistan if he didn't ruin the little exhibition of birds containing the coordinates. Hopefully the one where Janos Slynt was. No, he thought, probably the most inhabited one. The terrorists like people in their own special way.

"Thank you," Sandor said simply.

But which one of the guests was the buyer of the data about the shield to transmit them further? Many of the couples present took pictures of everything. And how was the code to decipher the data presented in the exposition going to be delivered? And there was another possibility...

"When was this email sent?" the Hound asked.

"The night before my arrival to Italy," Oberyn said. "After we missed the first plane."

Faster than a snake, the Hound spun and grabbed Anders Yronwood by his throat. "Before we continue our little discussion, you might want to tell us why you tried to kill the prince's daughter."

Oberyn's eyes darkened. "Anders? What is he saying?"

"A misunderstanding," the tall man stuttered. "I thought... I thought..."

Nymeria joined them out of nowhere. "Father," she said, "Anders thought you ordered Dorans' death. He wouldn't believe me you'd never do such a thing."

"Anders, how could you?" Oberyn's eyes accused his compatriot, who only had the grace to bow his enormous blond head, as if he expected a swift execution. He looked like an irregular block of pale yellow stone with nose and ears, speechless.

"It's not his fault he's smarter than the rest of your people. He figured half of the truth when your brother died," the Hound said. "Someone did order Doran's death to stir trouble in your country. It wasn't you. But I believe that it could have been done in your name. The order was placed with the society called the Faceless Man. We have to find out who did that. And for that we need my wife."

Sandor Clegane finally understood why Varys contracted a person with Sansa's qualifications. It was not for her looks nor to provide him a wife as a cover. Sansa would probably never believe him, and he didn't intend to tell her, but the Hound did read her cv which was in Varys's paperwork that first day in Venice after they had met. For one thing, it proved to be a more interesting reading than the plans of the palace. He only regretted there were no more photographs of her to go with the text. I can look, he had thought back then, never expecting he would be allowed to touch.

It was not an easy thing to log in the portal of the Faceless Men if you were not a member or an honest customer. It was actually deemed impossible. Nobody working in the service has ever succeeded. Not even Brienne, a computer whiz in her own right. Somehow, they always knew who was not visiting their website to give names to the god of death, but rather to pry in their illicit activities. The way they worked was full of odd superstitions, old religious beliefs and poetic language. Sandor did not give a damn about poetry, but a gun with a verse written on it could kill as good as any other. And the Faceless Men were nothing if not precise.

"Forgive me, Oberyn," Yronwood begged, "I knew it could not be you when I saw your grief at the letting of the lanterns...I should have immediately come to you... But Faceless Men? They don't exist, they're the stuff of legend. Nowadays it's only a website for idle teenagers..."

"A very real legend, I'd say," the Hound said. Oberyn and Nymeria exchanged dark glances. Did you consider offering my name to them? Was Dornistan too greedy to match their price? "If I were you, Oberyn, I wouldn't sleep tonight," he told Elia's brother. "If a name was given by someone who tricked them into being you, they will expect payment. It's possible that you would have paid them with the set of coordinates you know nothing about. If Sansa and I did not meddle with your fancy exposition of birds. And if they do not receive their pay... well.. Even if you would want to pay them now to save your skin, the system will not let you log in and you'll have no access to their account number because it was not you who ordered your brother's murder..."

"I see," Oberyn said timidly for a change, his fire gone out for the moment. "Ellaria will cry. Nym, Anders, please see to it that no one tells her. Mr Clegane, you have to understand, if I too perish in Europe as Doran did, our military might choose to retaliate on their own. There will be no need for someone to invade our command and control systems as your wife had suspected would happen."

"What target do your people have in mind for such an event?"

Oberyn shrugged. "Any of our neighbours has enough weapons and ideas to give them a suggestion or to perform an attack from our soil if we ask them nicely. What are we going to do?"

"You keep the man with the axe close to you," Sandor advised, "and I'm going to find my wife."

As long as Oberyn lived they could still finish the job.

If he died, it would be too late. Varys would do his best to sort out the political damage when the explosion would occur god knows where in the west. The offended party would most likely still retaliate against Dornistan, with hopefully less deadly results for the small country because almost any military asset known to the outside world would be of less importance than the new shielding technology. It would be Sandor's first failure as an agent in almost ten years. He didn't want to imagine the consequences. The number of victims in the west as well as in the east. He wondered how many dead would be children.

Sandor left the Dornish to themselves and continued walking.

The more he walked, the more he was certain: nothing in the entire bloody house smelled like Sansa except their room and their bathroom, both empty. The only thing left of the little bird were her clothes, and the bed linen they had shared. Before the duel, he had considered stealing the sheets. The scent would fade, but he'd still have something to remember her by when she would be gone.

There had been a faint trace of her smell in the room where the weapons exposition began. But only because it was on the inside, in the middle of the bloody house. It was windowless, and it still smelled on half a hundred other people since the inauguration.

There was only one certainty: no one had left the palace, not even the servants. Varys was in the field and it meant he had arranged his own little birds to watch over the exits, the logical and the less logical ones, such as climbing down the walls on any of the four sides of the place. Sandor trusted him on that.

It left one possibility: the roof. I haven't been to the roof yet. And he saw no logical access to it from the topmost floor. It meant that whoever abducted Sansa for Baelish would have difficulties finding it as well. I have to ask the damn prince about it. If he's still alive.

He went to the bathroom and splashed his head with water to wash out the last residues of Dornish red. The alcohol leaving his veins was slowly being replaced by despair. He stared at his ugly face in the mirror above the water tap.

Where are you? he thought. See how I was no good for you. I could not even keep you from harm... He felt tears in the corner of his eyes and he was too embarrassed to let them fall.

The only way out was anger.

In helpless rage the Hound punched the mirror. The blue three headed dog depicted on the tiles next to it laughed at him like Baelish had done. The glass shattered in pieces and the bleeding on his knuckles gentled his rage. A little bit.

His eyes widened.

The wall behind the mirror was not solid. Their room was the last one in that wing. The logical place. There was no need for guests to access the roof.

He had found a shortcut to go up.

Rapidly, he picked the shards of glass from his left hand, and wrapped it in one of his dirty shirts the best he could. No matter how angry, he'd not use the hand he needed for shooting in an outburst of bad temper. Carefully, he removed the rest of the mirror from the wall. He probed the surface behind, touched it, squeezed it, caressed it, as if it were a body of a woman. In his impatience it seemed that he wasted hours but it must have been mere minutes. Behind the wall panel there was a long shaft leading down to the ground floor and up to the roof two levels above him. He remembered closed doors on the ground floor, at the end of each wing. He took them for side exits, but they were also emergency exits, of sorts. There was a tiny stair built in the wall behind the mirror, too tiny for him, perhaps, but he wouldn't know until he tried it.

He returned to the room and looked for Sansa's computer the first time since she disappeared. When I find her, she'll need it to figure things out pretty soon. Oberyn had a decency to love his sister, just like Sandor did. So perhaps he did not deserve to die.

The laptop was gone. She must have taken it with her in the morning. Do they know? Tyrek or Baelish's catspawn? Do they
know who you are, Sansa? What you can do?

Sansa, I'm coming, he thought.

The climb was not long, but it was slow. The lid on top was heavy and he was grateful for not being a small man. Shoulder on the hatch, he could open it. Arms crawled out and felt grass under the fingertips. No cement or tiles. The green roof, he realized. A modern energy saving solution hidden behind the ancient looking façade with its row of statues on high pedestals. In one long, final pull through the hatch, his feet touched the ground as well.

The stars were out and the sculpted men with spears looked as if they were attacking the sky.

There was a faint scratch on stone in the middle of the roof, near the edge, right above the main entrance. The Hound bathed in the familiar smell. Maybe he could be a hero after all. He did find her.

"Sansa," he called softly.

"Stay away from me!" she screamed. He could not see her clearly.

She squatted on the high central pedestal between the sculptures of Lord Mors and Nymeria the warrior queen, the founders of Dornish principality. Strands of her long hair swayed gently in the night breeze.

Her words hurt him more than the shards of the mirror or a knife in his leg ever could.

A terrible suspicion crossed his mind. I gave her my phone. He grabbed it from the back pocket of his trousers and checked the date and time when the video with Elia was last accessed. He swallowed.

Sansa had seen it.

She believes the worst of me, then. And Oberyn confirmed her doubts when he accused me of raping his sister. "I'll not touch you again," he said. "I promise I won't, just let me come to you, please! Let me talk to you!"

It hadn't been Baelish at all. Sansa ran away from him... All of a sudden, he was afraid she would jump. He imagined her body lying lifeless on the monumental entrance stairs below. The thought was unbearable. He made a leap forward and she must have heard it.

"No!" she shrieked. "Stay where you are! Please!"

The courtesy made him freeze in his steps and squint his eyes to see better. In front of where Sansa was hiding there was a hollow in the ground. He could not see the contents clearly but the shape was familiar. A crater. And then, he knew. Mines, he thought. He stood still, afraid of a misstep. He was heavy enough to cause another blast.

"Sansa," the Hound said slowly, not moving. "Do you have your bloody computer with you?"

The silence between the two warrior statues nodded, he thought.

"Google the search term Faceless Men, go to their page, register and say you have a name to offer. If you can do that, don't give them a name. Trace the petitioner called Oberyn Martell in their list of clients."

"And then?" the darkness asked, sounding like Sansa, frightened, but intent on doing her job. He was so proud of her at that moment.

"Find out the identity of that petitioner if you can. It's not Oberyn. I'll go back and pick up some gear to get to you."

"I think I can do it," she said quickly, "but I have to offer a name."

"Give mine," he said, not thinking. He hoped the Hound could defend himself against a Faceless Man if it came to that. He had always been smarter and faster than Gregor.

He lowered himself into the passage to go back down when the darkness screeched for him to come back. He immediately pushed his head back up. "What?" he asked, somewhat annoyed. I told her I needed equipment.

"Please," his wife said. "You have to do something for me first." Her voice trembled.

"Whatever you want, love," he said and he wondered if she knew how he felt about her.

"I will give you a phone number," she said.

I'm not your baby any more, am I? He chuckled, suffering from the cold politeness of her treatment of him.

"Please, don't laugh," she said, "listen." He retained the number with no difficulty and wondered what she wanted of him that could not wait..

The truth was worse than he thought, and not for the first time in his life.

"It's my mother's number," she explained. "The man who took me here took my phone. He... he blew himself up with it. And my father will not answer his phone if he doesn't know the number. He never does. I pray that she will. You have to tell them. They should be getting off the plane in Alaska now. You have to call them. You have to tell them to sail out on one of my father's fishing boats. And to throw my mother's computer overboard far away from the coast. Please call now.

Sandor... I think... I think I know what the new target is, if the birds didn't work... It must be a small military base next my father's factory. And I believe that my mother's computer emits a signal to mark its location. She received an email yesterday, after we tampered with the exposition... "

She didn't have to tell him whose email it had been. Pity it would be blown up with her mother's computer, more like than not. So they would have no proof against Baelish just like he always intended.

"It'll be okay," the Hound said harshly. He hoped his crude voice sounded at least a little bit reassuring. "We still have time." Oberyn was alive half an hour ago. "Nothing will happen to your family."

He fumbled for his phone and hoped that the device was as good as Brienne had told him it was. The mobile network signal was weak in the area. He managed to get a connection and he had to let it ring many, many times. Finally, a lady's voice answered, rich and worried.

"Who is it?" she said.

The Hound made a mental note to thank Brienne. He briefly considered asking the woman out when she had joined the service. She was almost as tall as him although she was way less ugly. Maybe it would have worked. Except that she fell for his handsome colleague, Jaime. The affair made the Hound wonder if a good looking woman could care about him, as much as Jaime seemed to care about his unconventional girlfriend.

"Madam, I call on behalf of your daughter, Sansa," the Hound said politely.

"Who are you?" the man's voice said, impatiently. Sansa's father must have grabbed his wife's phone.

"Your son in law," the Hound chose to say. They obviously didn't approve of Sansa's sudden marriage, but he hoped that the shock of his statement might provoke them to listen.

"Yes?" the voice was there, waiting, dangerous in the dark. They saw my bloody picture on Facebook. They'll be thinking I kidnapped her or something. I would if I were them.

Sandor Clegane had never been so eloquent before. Varys will be proud. Palms sweaty, he explained everything, bit by bit, with uncharacteristic patience.

They listened.

"It's okay," he told Sansa when he hung up the phone, "they'll take your word for it even if they don't think much of me."

"Baby," she called him that again, "don't you worry. They'll love you when they meet you in person."

His world stopped. She doesn't mean that, does she? "Don't say that," he muttered. "Oh," she said, "I'm sorry," she added. "I thought you may have wanted us to stay togeth-" "-I did! I do!" he reacted. "Oh," she repeated. He wished he could see her face, certain that she was blushing.

Blessedly, she forgot to apologise.

"I do as well," she whispered.

The Hound's head spun. The shock of their mutual confession refilled the emptiness left by Dornish wine in his veins.

"I have to think straight now," he barked, failing to be gentle. It was still a bit better than saying, shut up, or, shut up, please. "I'll be with you in a minute," he made it sound as a promise, as the necessary calm slowly spread through his veins by the sheer force of his will.

Italy used to be the largest producer and exporter of anti-personnel mines before they were forbidden by the international treaties and national law. Companies were left with stocks they could not get rid of. What better use for those than to sell them to a crazy Dornish prince to secure his roof? The authorities would not bother to check his palace anyway.

When he started his training with the service, Sandor discovered he inherited the gift for demining from his father. His parents were immigrants in England, just like Elia. They came from somewhere in eastern Europe at the end of the 1980s. It didn't prevent Gregor from hating foreigners and siding with Tywin Lannister on that count. Their parents were so ashamed of their origin, whatever it was, that they never told their children where they were from. They never spoke to them in any other language but English. They changed their last name into Clegane upon arrival to the west. Years later, as an adult, Sandor googled his given name, and those of his siblings, Gregor and Elena. His best guess was that one of his parents may have been Hungarian, and another Slovak or maybe Czech.

He was going to die not knowing.

His father was a very versatile weapons specialist, with experience in both mining and demining, and his mother just looked pretty as far as the Hound could remember her. The rare profession made it possible for his father to leave whatever country he came from, when the eastern bloc still existed, and get a good job in England.

Sandor scrambled down to their room and back up again. Detector, pick-prod, shears. Protective suit. Find, dig in, cut some wires. He handled the tools in the correct order, until it was time to pull the first device out of the ground.

He widened the opening with the two-handed excavator. He carefully attached the hook of the pulling set on the mine the best he could.

The sky was pressing on him, heavily blue.

One, two, three... It was out. It's now or never, he thought, handling the device

His heart went very still.

No boom came so the deactivation must have been successful. The second one would be easier, he knew.

He thought he could hear Sansa's breathing.

"See, I'm almost there, love," he smiled under the mask of the demining visor. Doggedly, he continued working.

Chapter Text

Sansa's heart had been in her shoes when Sandor cleared the first mine out of the field. Slowly, it climbed back up to her chest, with every device he removed which didn't explode. It was cold on the roof, but her tense body completely ignored the chill.

When he was two steps away from her, he carefully set most of his tools on the ground. After several, strangely elegant moves of the instrument he used to detect the mines, he spoke.

"Just like I thought. There is a clear path to that hatch," he pointed to the nearest opening in the roof, which was not the one he came from. "Is that the way our friend here used?" he gestured at the hollow in the ground in front of her, and the sneering face of a dead man within.

Sansa nodded. When her mind processed the information, she was terrified. "If you suspected there was a safe path, why didn't you use it?"

"And risk that Baelish came to collect his prize while I was walking to the other end of the bloody house? Tell you what, I had enough sightseeing for a while. From the roof I had a clean line of shot to anyone who-"

"You could have gotten yourself killed," Sansa accused him. She wished to slap him. She didn't.

"Not bloody likely," he said, coming closer. "I was always good at this shit. I was wondering why Varys packed this gear. I thought it was in case we had to fly to Dornistan. You never know what Varys has in stock for you when he gives you only half of the facts for some reason. They have old minefields from some old wars over there."

Sansa removed the protective helmet Sandor had been wearing to see him better. With his marred face nested safely between her hands, a peaceful sensation invaded a place in her chest where her anxiousness had been. His figure blessedly obstructed the view of the hollow in the green roof with human remains.

Without the helm, Sandor was all cold sweat and big grey eyes. It reminded her of a dog she had as a little girl, whose name was Lady. Sandor was no lady but she started loving him all the same.

It wasn't an affection built upon over the years which she had always admired in the case of her parents. It was something fresh and potent, something that could grow, given a chance.

"I'm sorry," she couldn't resist the urge to apologise, although he didn't seem to like it when she did so. "I should have stayed at the duel."

He gazed at her lips.

Sansa resisted the urge to kiss him. She ran out of words in his presence. Why should they talk at all? And just before she would give in to all her urges, all explanations be damned, he asked, his voice a whisper. "Why didn't you stay?"

Baby, I never intended to leave you. I was going to come back.

"Mr Baelish told me how Prince Oberyn fought with poisoned spear. I... I..." Will you believe me? "There was an exhibit, a rifle. It's the only firearm I know how to use. I thought that if I took it, I could threaten someone. Make the prince stop and leave you alone. You... you didn't rape anyone no matter what he thinks."

"How can you be so sure?" his eyes narrowed and turned dull, like thick, uneven ice on a frozen lake in winter. "And it's not exactly polite to go through someone's private stuff on his or her phone. Your mother must have taught you that." He was treating her like a child again. She hated it.

Sansa straightened her head, looked at the dead man in the hole no matter how horrible it was, and told him in her father's voice, the one he used when he frightened the shareholders with bad business results. "You have a video in your phone and you think it proves something. Well, it's a fake. And a badly made one. The man on it looks like you but he has no scars. You told me yourself you got them when you were six."

There was a genuine expression of shock on Sandor's face. "I see," he said, trying to fake indifference. "You sure?" he asked, hesitantly.

He truly doesn't know. Sansa couldn't believe it.

"Yes," Sansa said, trying to sound as reassuring as possible. "Stop hiding it in your phone and give it to some expert for video files working with you. They will tell you the same thing."

"Oh," he said again, very thoughtful all of a sudden. "But then... then, I don't have to do this shit any more. Not at all."

"Which shit?" Sansa asked.

"This. Varys. You"

"So I am some shit to you. How lovely." His statement hurt.

"I meant putting you in trouble. I should've told them to send you back home on that first day in Venice."

"So why didn't you?" She should fly back home, she should forget about this man, she really should.

"The paperwork I received ordered me not to. Your presence was crucial for the success of this task, it said." It was not what Sansa wanted to hear. Her jaw dropped and he must have noticed it.

"But that was all before you supported me in front of Prince Doran at the entrance to that ball. You didn't even know me. You were afraid of me. You had every reason not to believe me. And yet you stood up for me, in your own polite way. Then we danced and I- I-" he couldn't finish. "I would have killed anyone for you from that moment on."

It was not exactly a declaration of love that Sansa wanted to hear, But it was something. The hurt disappeared. She looked down on him with expectation. She didn't know of what.

His arms circled her waist. He studied her face intently from very close by. She was still waiting.

But then he just grinned like an idiot and gazed at something behind her. The broad smile made him look so ugly that she almost closed her eyes.

"Look," he said, all secretive all at once, "there are strange things under the sun..."

Sansa slowly turned her head. There was a carved compartment right under the stone sun held high by the warrior Princess Nymeria. And in it, carefully stuck, was an USB stick.

Sansa breathed out: "That's why Mr Baelish ordered Prince Doran's murder!"

"Right, because he did tell us where the key to this entire mess was. It's just that we were both morons and we didn't figure it out." Sandor reached over Sansa to liberate the small item from its hiding place. He held it against her breasts. Then he noticed the unarmed figure of Lord Mors. "Where is his spear?" he asked. Sansa looked guiltily at the hollow in front of her. "He... he... he bent over me! Probably to retrieve the stick. I thought he was going to do something to me-"

"You took the spear from the statue and sent him flying back," Sandor said in a happy rasp. "That's my girl."

"I should very much like to have whatever you had found over there, Mr Clegane," Prince Oberyn Martell requested. He surged out of the hatch closest to them behind a barrel of a gun. He was followed by Mr Yronwood, similarly armed. Both men navigated through the minefield on a broad path that Sansa's dead kidnapper had crossed.

"No need to get nervous," Sandor said. He stood right in front of Sansa, painfully close. The prince and his companion could not see through his back. With utmost care, he slipped their finding under the left strap of Sansa's bra. Very gently, he readjusted her blouse over it. The skin on her shoulder tingled. Then, he turned around and showed two empty hands to Prince Oberyn. "There isn't anything here, Your Excellency. Only my wife."

"My brother died for something," Oberyn said stubbornly. "It's only right that Dornistan gets the merchandise he paid for with his life. "Anders, go search them," he ordered.

A voice old as a world spoke from under the open hatch. "I'd leave them alone if I were you, Your Excellency"

Will all the guests come to the roof this morning? Sansa wondered.

A green purse made its way out, held by a pair of emaciated, spotted hands dressed in black wool. Old or not, they were not trembling. Prince Oberyn hesitated. Sansa recognised the purse of snake skin she had admired, property of old Mrs Blackfyre. Now it looked like a large green flower with soft petals turned inside out.

It was ticking.

"Sansa," Sandor said gleefully, "allow me to present you Aemon Targaryen, former head of service I have been working for."

The name worked miracles with the prince. "Aemon... Targaryen?" he said. "I thought you were dead."

Targaryens were a supposedly extinct dynasty from one of the countries near Dornistan according to Sansa's education.

"I am a last living son of a very old family," Aemon said with immense sadness, "but I am not dead yet. Even if I sometimes wish I were."

Mr Varys made his way through the roof after him, panting. "So many stairs," he complained. "Where has the Dornish hospitality disappeared? It's breakfast time!"

"It's a good point," Sandor said. "I'm starving."

If she thought about it, Sansa was hungry too.

Prince Oberyn shrugged and casually walked the remaining five steps to Sansa and Sandor. "Walk very closely after me, both of you," he said. "Leave the tools. My men will collect them later. I wouldn't wish you to end as poor Mr Kettleblack."

"Kettleblack?" Sandor didn't sound convinced. "I thought I killed him in Venice."

"A brother. There were apparently three of them. They all work for Mr Petyr Baelish. I have a hunch I should go and murder the third one myself, for sport," Oberyn said. "It could prove more interesting than hawking on a Sunday afternoon."

Sansa got hold of Sandor's back. Together, they followed the prince. She was glad when they finally left the roof. After two flights of stairs they reached the part of the second floor containing weaponry.

"This way," Prince Oberyn led them further. "It's still too early to disturb the rest of my guests."

Right above the main entrance to the palace, on the second floor, there was a set of rooms which were not used for any of the exhibitions. It consisted of three chambers, one larger central one, and two smaller lateral ones, all three with a door to the corridor. The central space was decorated in tender pink and golden hues. There was a large rounded table with eight chairs in the middle, near two square windows. Prince Oberyn spoke with melancholy, like an unwilling tourist guide forced to do his duty. "These rooms belonged to Mellario, my brother's wife. They've been separated for years. He... he always kept the rooms ready for her... "

Sansa suffered an attack of courage. She stepped in front of Sandor and patted the prince on his back. "His death was not your doing."

"If I didn't call Hotah to me when I did-"

"-the Faceless Men would have found another window of opportunity," Sandor concluded matter-of-factly. "They're known to fulfil their contracts."

"The Faceless Man who came for me is no longer faceless," Prince Oberyn said with malice. "Headless would be a better description."

With that, he pushed open the door leading to one of the side rooms. In it, the pink and the gold were conquered by barbaric splendour. There was no way to tell where the carpets ended and the bed of silks began. There were soft cushions in red, yellow and orange. The room had no window. The air smelled sweet, on citrus fruits and roses.

"I thought I'd sleep somewhere else last night, to be more difficult to find," Oberyn said.

In the middle of the smaller room, Captain Hotah stood over a headless corpse, cleaning his axe. Sansa put a hand in front of her mouth, happy she hadn't eaten for a while.

The body belonged to Mr Tyrek Lannister.

Sandor patted Captain Hotah on his back. "Good job," he said enthusiastically. The floor turned into sea waves under Sansa's feet. She fought the weakness in her legs. She had almost forgotten. This is what Sandor does as well. Killing. Sansa had accidentally pushed a man into the minefield. Anyone can kill under certain circumstances, she realized. It didn't make her feel any less queasy.

"He was trained by the barbed priests," Oberyn praised Captain Hotah. "If the Faceless Men are the best assassins, the barbed priests are the best bodyguards."

"What of Mr Baelish?" Sansa said. "Shouldn't we, I don't know, arrest him? He's responsible for everything, isn't he?"

"Well, yes, of course, my dear," Varys said as if he were tutoring a five year old.

"But we still have no tangible proof," Aemon Targaryen sighed. "Let's take a seat. My legs are so weak that I could drop this purse in the middle of this lovely palace. And we wouldn't want that to happen, would we?"

Prince Oberyn mercifully closed the door to the unpleasantness they had witnessed.

Sansa and Aemon were awarded the best places on the table, near the windows. The old man deftly pressed a few selected places on his floral purse. The ticking stopped. "There," he told the prince, "as a sign of our good will."

"Nice gadget," Sandor told Varys. "One of my latest designs," Varys said. His voice sounded bored. "Pity we didn't get to test its effects..."

"I was tempted to," Aemon said. "But I have learned something from Mr Baelish during our short and memorable acquaintance. It's better to have clean hands."

Sandor had been the last one to take a seat, as close to Sansa as the chairs allowed. He lifted his long legs on the fragile table and wrapped his left arm around Sansa's shoulders.

Varys sighed, "Ah, the youth of today!" Sandor gave a defiant look to Prince Oberyn. To Sansa's surprise, His Excellency imitated the gesture as if he were learning a new cultural thing. Fortunately, the table did not collapse under the weight of four legs on it. "Varys, you old creep," Sandor said. "You owe us all here an explanation or I'll be thrilled to shoot you again. You choose where."

The legs were lowered when the servants arrived. They cleaned the table and they brought coffee, tea, milk, cream, fresh bread, butter and jam, finely cut slices of ham and cheese, a tray full of Dornish spreads, and another one with strange looking cakes. Sansa hoped they were not too spicy. The table looked like Sansa's ideas about the luxury of spying before coming to Italy. This is all wrong, her mind rebelled. We should not be having coffee now. "But Mr Baelish-" she said.

Mr Varys looked almost asleep.

"Don't worry, love," Sandor said lazily, "if Varys and Aemon are being this casual, the job is over. Without us, it seems. And for once I don't mind not being involved in cleaning up the mess."

"Well, it's almost done," Varys said cryptically, "we will see by the end of today. Plenty of time to have a cup of tea I'd say. A question, my dear Sansa, if I may call you so... Have you by any chance found the video recording to help exonerate my best agent from his unfortunate childhood conviction?"

"He has it in his phone," Sansa rattled. His best agent? Of course, you stupid, Arya's voice said in her head. Joffrey is a young man who was only driving and pretending to be important.

"In our phone, you mean," Varys continued. "How clever," Aemon added.

"It's a fake," Sansa said. "The recording, it's made to look as if it were Sandor. But I'd say it's probably Sandor's brother raping a girl." Prince Oberyn frowned. "I'm sorry, Your Excellency, but there is no nicer word to describe it," she said shyly. "The camera shows a young man looking like my husband, but he's older than 12, taller than Sandor if you can believe it, and if you look very carefully you can see that he has no facial scars. I'd say that Sandor somehow made a digital version of an old video tape, and chose to hide it in his phone."

She stiffened, expecting Sandor's reaction. His arm never left her shoulder. Sansa imagined him lying on a pile of yellow cushions where the dead man had been, as she slowly lowered herself to him. Prince Oberyn and Mr Yronwood were all ears, pretending to sip their tea.

"Sandor, do you have anything to say to all of us?" Mr Targaryen said.

All eyes were on Sandor. Struck by a sudden inspiration, Sansa used the moment to insert the USB stick they had found in her laptop.

Slowly, painfully, Sandor said, "I might have the original tape back home. What of it?"

Sansa frowned as she was studying the contents of the USB stick.

"You will give it to Brienne first thing when you're back in England," Aemon commanded. "The service will make sure that your process is reopened in the light of new, substantial evidence. You will provide testimony as to everything that has happened that day. Your forced community work will end. You can quit working for us."

"Good," Sandor said. "I might do just that."

Sansa beamed at the software she uncovered. This explained Mr Baelish's mode of working. It was more awful than she thought.

"Or you can choose to work for us as an innocent man," Varys said in a sly tone. "Your Excellency," he addressed Prince Oberyn abruptly. "What did you do with my dear friend who posed as a priest? Was it Mr Baelish who brought him to you? Of course he was."

The prince looked embarrassed. "I didn't do anything," he said quickly. "I gave him a room and told him to enjoy the party."

"He's obviously not a priest. His patients call him Elder Brother and he happens to be a most competent shrink," Varys said, "much better than Dr Pycelle who is treating your sister. In case you do want her to remember what has happened to her and confirm Sandor's story."

"How the hell did Baelish know about your priest?" Sandor asked.

"Because I told him all about it, of course," Varys said as if it were the most logical thing in the world. "I do owe both of you an apology. Mr Clegane, Miss Stark-"

"Mrs Clegane," Sansa interrupted. She closed her laptop in a wild motion, as Arya would have done. Sandor opened his mouth to say something, but then he opted to stay quiet. Sansa smiled at him.

"Oh," Varys stuttered, "just as I thought, just as I thought. Just so."

"What Varys is trying to say," Aemon helped, "is that he had to send you in the field with only half of the necessary information, not to increase the risks."

"Because Mr Baelish doesn't produce dog food any more. He designs spyware," Sansa stated as arrogantly as she could, "as well as programmes which protect companies and state organizations from that same spyware. He infected the system of your service as well."

"Someone did," Aemon admitted, "we didn't know it was him until very recently. Baelish offered to sell us a perfect programme to eliminate his own spyware at a very unfriendly price."

"We agreed to meet in Venice. I offered him a fair deal for his software solution," Varys said, "but he made a special demand."

"What did he want?" Sandor blurted. Varys's eyes narrowed on Sansa and Sandor's fist connected with the soft jaw of his boss across the table. "No!" Sandor said. "Damn you, Blackfyre!"

"I won't say I didn't deserve it," Varys said, rubbing his face. "In my defence, I sent you, Clegane, to watch over her. If it was not about protecting a woman, I would have used Bronn Stokeworth. I promised Baelish he could have Sansa after Prince Doran's party, to gain time. Sansa's mother had been his obsession when he was a teenager, but much to his dislike, she married Sansa's father. And after seeing her daughter at the ball that old flame rekindled. He asked for immediate payment or he was going to sell his software to Russia and China. You see, Mr Baelish is a very adaptive individual, one of the few I have met who are probably more intelligent than myself."

"And a most accomplished liar," Mr Targaryen added in a grim voice.

Varys talked and slurped his tea. "Sansa, my dear, I had no choice in the matter. I joined Mr Brune to help secure your early delivery to Mr Baelish, with all intention to secure its failure, but in such a way that Baelish would still wish to do business with me. We left you in Petyr's car. I knew Sandor would find you there because he has some special abilities and he absolutely hates people who harass women.

There was only one development during this task which could have been our undoing. I didn't expect that-"

"That I would fall for Sandor," Sansa said. She leaned backward, finding a broad chest instead of the back of the chair.

"Or that he would fall for you," Aemon offered. "Women may not like Sandor's face, but he's also not a man who's interested in just any pretty girl. We hoped you would find out sooner about the illicit cybernetic activities of Mr Baelish.

"Which I did not..." Sansa admitted.

"-because you were performing extensive checks on my large friend and former employee next to you," Varys drooled. "That was by the way a special side job I had in mind for you, my dear. You did excellent in making the truth about his past resurface. You see, Sandor has eluded me for many years. It didn't take me long to understand that he didn't fit the profile of a brother killer and rapist as they warned me in juvenile prison. When I recruited him, I expected a thug, who was to die after a few years of service. He surprised us all by being smart, brave, willing to learn and most reliable. So much that we wanted to help him become a free man."

Prince Oberyn coughed indiscreetly. "Hum, are your agents something you should discuss in front of the representatives of a foreign, albeit very small regional power?"

"In this instance, I believe it to be our duty," Varys said seriously. "Because of what happened to your sister in the past due to xenophobic individuals who forget we all come from somewhere, and because we could not stop one of our citizens on time, before he... Sansa, am I right that Petyr Baelish ordered the murder of Prince Doran in the name of his brother Prince Oberyn from the terrorist group called the Faceless Men?"

"Yes," Sansa , "but I informed them of what he did."

"Excellent, my dear," Varys went on. "I wouldn't expect any less of you. Any theories why he did that?"

Sansa hurried to explain as if Varys were a teacher and she his best student. "He must have tried to sell his software to Prince Doran, claiming it would help against the terrorists who announced that they would organize an attack on Europe or North America from his country. Mr Baelish failed to inform the prince that the same programme would first allow the terrorists to infiltrate Dornistan."

"My brother was a cautious man," Prince Oberyn observed. "He said he needed time to study the product. That was what Baelish told me when he offered to sell it to me when I arrived. Later he blamed my brother's murder on the terrorists groups and on Doran's hesitation to work with Baelish to help our country. And I would have arrived a day earlier if a computer virus didn't mess up the system of reservations of the company we were flying with. I thought it was a coincidence. Now I know it was not. Baelish wanted my brother to be isolated and alone."

Sansa nested against Sandor. "Do we tell them?"

"I think so," he blew his response in her neck, ever so gently.

Sansa removed the innocuous USB stick from her laptop and placed it on the middle of the table. "This is the product. Prince Doran seemed to have taken it for his examination quite literally. He gave us a hint where it was the day when we all arrived here. We assume that Mr Baelish took it as a betrayal of their business agreement. I wish we had understood sooner what Prince Doran had meant. "

"It was not always easy to understand my brother," Oberyn said with sadness to no-one in particular, "and now it's too late."

The unspeakable gloominess descended on the pink and golden furniture of Doran's widow, mourning for the things that could have been.

"Look!" Aemon said all of a sudden. The liveliness in his voice could wake the dead. He was now standing at the window and his pale blue eyes gleamed violet in the morning sun. "Mr Baelish is about to leave. I'd say he believes Sansa Stark is again in his trunk."

"How can he possibly believe that?" Sansa was flabbergasted.

"Because a man wearing a face of Osmund Kettleblack, whom I noticed to be quite dead up on the roof, has just come to pick him up. And I trust that while we were chit-chatting and nibbling on our wonderful breakfast here, the corpse in Prince Oberyn's bedroom was taken and placed in the trunk instead of you, my dear," Aemon explained gaily. "The Faceless Men are nothing but professional. They never leave any trace behind."

Oberyn rushed to where Tyrek Lannister had been. He returned with a single red flower on a golden cushion, and a simple white card attached to it. Valar morghulis, it read.

"Valar dohaeris," Sansa whispered. Sandor coughed loudly, spitting some coffee through his teeth. The sound muted her voice. The sudden attack of cough seemed forced and rather unnatural.

"What did you say, my dear?" Varys was tremendously curious.

"I said it was such a beautiful flower," Sansa said. "Isn't it?"

"It most certainly is," Prince Oberyn said, smelling it.

It would not do to admit to Mr Blackfyre and Mr Targaryen that Sansa's wild little sister, Arya, did an internship with the Faceless Man when she was only sixteen years old. Sansa believed it was a rock band at the time. Now she knew better. Her sister taught her a password to their site. "If you ever need it," Arya had muttered. And without her help Sansa wouldn't have been able to exchange messages online with the kindest man she had ever known and show him how Petyr Baelish abused the identity of Prince Oberyn Martell. Or maybe she would, but it would have taken her much more time.

"It's the closest thing coming to an apology that you will ever receive from them for the misplaced attack on your life," Varys told Oberyn while giving Sansa a look of disappointment. "It says that all men must die in their secret language. It's a greeting, I heard. I was hoping that Sansa was able to decipher the response to it, but apparently she wasn't. No one has been able so far."

All men must serve, Sansa knew the answer, but she wasn't going to tell it to them.

She resisted the temptation to lower her eyes. She kept staring at Varys. You're just a silly girl, she was telling herself, repeatedly. Just a stupid girl. Look at him as if you were one. Sandor's arm abandoned her shoulder. It sneaked around her waist like a snake of sorts. It was most disconcerting. She wasn't afraid of it, despite hating snakes and spiders. And Mr Varys suddenly looked like a giant black widow in Sansa's eyes.

"Somehow I do not believe Mr Baelish can count on an apology from the Faceless Men," Aemon said.

The wizened old man didn't move from the window, hiding himself from the outside world behind the velvety pink curtain. "There," he said, "Baelish checked that there was a body bag in his trunk and then they left."

"Aemon, what did you exactly tell him to make him leave in such a hurry when he accompanied you to the little girl's room?" Varys had to know.

"Oh, nothing special," Aemon grinned and he looked thirty years younger. "I may have offered him your job as a Master of Whisperers. Of course, provided that he delivered us the latest edition of his new revolutionary software in person by the end of today. In London, of course. Take it or leave it, I told him, it's our final offer. I may have spoken of a nobility title as well. If he ever arrives there, Jaime and Brienne will know what to do."

"You nasty old man!" Varys exclaimed.

"The age will do that to you," Aemon said, very satisfied. "Shall we now discuss our confidential business proposal to Dornistan, dear ex husband?"

"What a a lovely day it is, my friends!" Varys squeaked and wiped the cream from his chin. "The party will end after lunch today. But if I were you, Sansa, I would to take your husband to see a real doctor, not a grandson of a barber who presents himself as a doctor, but who's actually a mechanic."

"Sandor, how is your leg?" she asked and for the first time since he had come for her in the night she noticed that his left hand was bandaged as well. Why didn't I see it before? "What happened to your hand?"

"I will live," Sandor said curtly, "but Varys may have a point."

"We'll be leaving right now," Sansa said, "if that's okay with everyone."

"It has been a pleasure meeting you both," Prince Oberyn said. "Should you choose Dornistan for your honeymoon you would be most welcome."

"Not so sure about that," Sandor muttered. "Of course," the prince noted with some regret, Sansa thought.

"It's not about you," Sandor retorted. "That's now over. It's just that the damn climate is too hot for my liking."

Prince Oberyn grinned sheepishly. "In that case, farewell," he said, "and may the sands of your home protect you. I'll have your car brought to you and all your possessions loaded."

"Thank you all," Sansa said. "Good-bye." She took Sandor's good hand and pulled him out of the room.

She made him stop under the old moose killing rifle with which she had wanted to defend him.

"Do you still want us to stay together?" she asked.

Her only reply was a kiss like she had never received in her lifetime. Not even from him until now.

"Okay," she said, catching breath when it ended. She realized she didn't mind if Sandor was only after her father's money. As long as he would go on kissing her like he just did. It made her forget his scars. It made her forget everything. "My family owns a fishing industry, you know. We can live of that. You don't have to work for Varys or for anyone if you don't want to. You don't have to kill for a living."

Sandor laughed. "What do you think they gave me for my service until now? A subsidy in rice like in some poor countries? I'm 35. I've worked long enough. And I didn't have that much of a private life in all that time as you can imagine, so I invested in various businesses. I can buy you new shoes for the rest of my life."

"Oh," Sansa said. He didn't want her money. But she had to hear him say it. She just had to. "So you want me for myself?"

Sandor appeared confused. "Has anyone ever wanted you for anything else?"

The face of Ramsay Bolton in Sansa's mind screeched in shock. My ex is a moron, she thought. And I'm an idiot who believed his words years after I had the good sense to dump him.

Sandor chuckled. "Silly little bird," he said, fighting to contain his mirth.

It was Sansa's turn to kiss him.

Just to make him shut up.

At first.

After all, there was no-one visiting the weapons exposition at that moment, and it was only polite to give Prince Oberyn's people some time to collect their belongings.

Chapter Text

Aunt Lysa couldn't stop talking.

Mrs Baelish turned out to be the lost sister of Sansa's mother. Sandor and Sansa found her skulking at the entrance of the palace when they were ready to depart. She wore a pink silken blouse, hiding a pair of soft, fluffy breasts and several kilos of fat, and a pair of summer trousers closed with a button which was about to burst open.

"Darling, you look just like Catelyn. I was fooled by your new last name, but my dearest Petyr explained me it was you," she squealed like a piglet at Sansa. "Clegane, ew..." Lysa looked sickened. "What kind of name is that?" she squeaked in a falsetto. "Petyr also told me something dreadful was most likely going to happen to you with that awful husband," the last sentence was a hushed whisper followed by a hateful glance to the back. Sandor limped after Sansa and squeezed her behind when Aunt Lysa looked in the other direction. It was most disconcerting. Sansa had to grab his good hand to stop him from doing that.

"I am quite all right," Sansa reassured her aunt, wondering what happened to the pop singer Lysa had run away with. Maybe Mr Baelish murdered him as well.

"If you say so, if you say so..." Lysa squinted in the bright morning light. "Petyr is a very important businessman and a very observant man. He was in such a hurry today that he couldn't wait for me to get ready."

Aunt Lysa looked at Sansa with lost, pleading eyes. "Sansa, darling, could the two of you give me a ride to Vicenza? We booked a hotel there to spend a romantic afternoon and evening together."

Sansa was repulsed by her aunt's girlish demeanour and evil glances addressed at Sandor. No, she thought, call a taxi. "Okay," she said out loud. She couldn't very well leave her aunt, could she? Her mother would never forgive her. Sansa's mother was inconsolable when her sister had disappeared several years ago.

"Will you then give a call to my mother when you are back in England?" she asked in return, sinking in the driver's seat. Her aunt was not listening, busy checking the growth of her eyebrows in a small mirror above the passenger seat.

Vicenza was not far and the roads were empty. It would have been a most pleasant ride if Aunt Lysa's constant chatter did not make both driving and daydreaming exceedingly difficult for Sansa.

Lysa kept trying to call and text her husband, while at the same time showering Sandor and Sansa with further indiscretions of how great man Mr Baelish was, especially between the sheets.

Great lover or not, Mr Baelish would not answer his phone.

He's not better than Sandor, I know that now, Sansa thought, suppressing a silly, knowledgeable smile. Good god, anyone could have walked in on us. The carpet had been soft and patterned and their need to touch each other so great. She had felt boneless in his arms and his skin had been warm and tense. What she adored most was the surprised expression in his eyes, as if he still couldn't believe his luck.

"Sansa, darling, you know, you are still so young but even you should know..." Aunt Lysa was utterly insupportable. Sansa wondered if Lysa and her mother had fought as much as Arya and she did in their childhood. At least Arya was more bearable now. "Size is not everything," her aunt finally stated.

Sandor coughed at that, stretching his injured leg on the back seat as much as the space allowed. His shoeless foot was almost in Sansa's neck and his lower calf was bleeding again.

Fed up with Aunt Lysa, he rumbled. "Put on the radio. I want to hear some news."

Sansa hurried to obey. It was not a bad idea.

"...Tyrek Lannister, guilty of murder of Prince Doran Martell... The signal was going on and off. ...fingerprints found on a murder weapon, a pitchfork... Mr Petyr Baelish, an honourable English businessman, who discovered this heinous crime... engaged in a heroic fight against Mr Lannister, a much stronger man then himself... in a car in the direction of Venice... resulting in a crash... crash... crash... both Mr Baelish and Mr Kettleblack lost their lives... Robert Baratheon was released from custody with apologies from the authorities... is now with his beloved wife, Cersei, and oldest son, Joffrey...

Sansa's mouth thinned and trembled only so slightly. The news was expected, but also shocking in a way. She hoped that Arya would approve of what she had done. Sometimes, they could be alike. Why would Sansa give Sandor's name to a guild of killers if she could give a name of a man who tricked them all? She wondered if the man who wore the face of Osmund Kettleblack that morning had been one of Arya's friends.

Sansa thanked god that Arya had a good sense to come back home. Arya could not forget her own face which seemed to be a requirement to become a full member of the guild. And the Faceless Men could not be all that bad if they had just let her little sister go. There were other organizations recruiting young people in the world from which there was no return.

Still it felt odd that Sansa had just killed a man by typing his name in her computer.

It's good that he is dead, she told herself, steadying her hands on the steering wheel. He wouldn't have minded if both my parents died. He wouldn't have cared. Frankly, dumping her mother's computer in a bathtub full of water would have probably done the same trick of disabling it, but once she glimpsed what kind of man Mr Baelish was, Sansa wouldn't take any chances. An explosion in the middle of the ocean would have only killed fish, that much was certain. Sansa didn't particularly like fish. They ate it too frequently for dinner at home.

Sandor whistled. "My dear Mrs Baelish," he said with his usual bluntness, "do allow me to congratulate you on becoming a widow." His good mood was contagious. Sansa almost laughed. Almost.

Listening to the news had been a very bad idea.

Aunt Lysa began to scream.

The button of her trousers buried itself like a bullet in Sansa's kneecap.

xxxx

The hospital in Vicenza was a long many-storied building. To Sansa's delight, it did not look like a palace at all.

She had had enough of palaces to last for a life time.

Sansa and Sandor brought Aunt Lysa inside. She kept yelling hysterically and resisting their efforts. The receptionist took their identity papers lifelessly, filled in some papers, yawned and didn't give any of them as much as a second look.

The doctor was a different story. When Aunt Lysa was sedated and taken away to get some rest, she turned all her attention to Sandor. The doctor was a very short, black-haired woman with a motherly voice that freaked when she examined Sandor's injuries. "You could have gotten blood poisoning and died or lost half of your leg from that cut," she judged. "You were lucky that the wound didn't fester with the poor treatment it had."

Sandor just listened to the tirade and kept his mouth shut. Sansa wasn't surprised.

The doctor continued ranting at nobody in particular. The wound was cleaned, sewed and bandaged and Sandor forced to swallow some pills. He was ordered to stay in bed for a day. He would be discharged next morning after a check-up, the doctor finally declared.

Sandor was not thrilled. "I have a plane to catch," he said. It was the first thing he said since they entered the hospital. You? Sansa thought. I thought it was us.

"We have a flight booked for this afternoon," she explained calmly.

"I'm sorry, Sansa," he realized his mistake. "I wasn't planning to run away."

The small doctor stepped on a chair to be almost as tall as him and yelled that if it weren't for her solemn oath, she'd be happy to let him die a painful death. Sandor smiled his ugly smile and agreed to stay for a day.

The insurance card of the service did miracles. They were given a private room with an armchair and a couch for a visitor. Sandor was driven in on a bed. Even when he was laying so helpless, there was danger in him. The threat was as visible as his scars. Sansa wished she could cuddle him to sleep. Make him loose that angry look. Have him look surprised again. Somehow, she didn't think that the doctor would approve of her ideas. Her own gaze must have gone completely sheepish because it drew his attention.

"What are you looking at?" Sandor interrupted Sansa's reverie. He sounded as if he were in pain and as if forcing himself to be rude cost him an extra effort. He looked like he badly needed sleep, all energy draining out of him now that the job was done. The medication would start to have effect on him and Sansa knew he would sleep soon.

It was a good moment to ask him, now when he was weak enough.

"What is it you want in a woman?" Sansa blurted. "In a relationship, I mean."

"What do you mean?"

"You know," she stated simply. "You're not stupid."

Sansa opened the window to get in some fresh air and to give him some space to think. The early autumn in Italy was wonderfully warm and all hospitals smelled alike. She wondered if he was going to answer her.

"I want to be able to smile and yet see a look of love on her face," he confessed behind her back. "On your face," he added hastily.

Sansa's lips curled. Daintily, she faced him again and sat on the edge of the bed. There was not so much space with him in it, but it would have to do.

"Smile," she commanded him. He looked dead serious, his lips flat and bloodless. The sun went down in his gaze. "Go ahead, smile," she insisted, "I won't bite you."

"Wouldn't mind if you did," he mumbled. Sansa felt warmth in her belly. Memories sprang forward. His hair over her face. Her body light like a feather in his arms. As if she were no taller than Arya. She did wish to bite him the other night, but she didn't dare. She must have looked very funny now.

Slowly, tentatively, Sandor smiled. Sansa already knew that it made him so hideous that it hurt her feelings. She put both hands to rest on his chest and allowed herself to feel in love.

"Do I pass the test?" she asked him, after a while.

Wonder bubbled in grey, flinty eyes. He caught one of her palms so that he could kiss her hand. He smiled against his will now and she just kept looking at him.

There was wetness surging in his eyes, tiny beads of liquid pooling in the corners.

"Did you catch a cold as well?" she asked, knowing he most certainly did not.

"The service vaccinates us against all kinds of diseases," he muttered, ill at ease, looking for a place to hide from her now that she had seen his ultimate weakness. There was no such place.

She leaned forward and cradled his entire head to her chest.

"Please, don't cry," she said, "unless you want me to dissolve in tears. You don't like hysterical women so much now, do you?"

Sandor shook his head and hid his face in her body. There was only one thing to do to prevent herself from crying. Gently, she lifted his head and kissed away the tears. "There," she said, "much better," she judged. "You know what," she joked, only a little bit. "I still prefer you smiling."

He wrenched his head free. Anger crept back in his eyes. Before he thought of another awful thing to say, Sansa knew she had to react. "It's okay, baby," she whispered against his face, "there's nothing wrong with some good old-fashioned love.

Chapter Text

"I was an idiot in the past, you must know that by now," he muttered to Sansa, and the words held true. He regretted them as soon as they left his mouth. Maybe she didn't hear him.

She wore yellow again, just like that night in the bloody gardens, a tiny top, strapless, and a pair of fluttery summer trousers. A thin vest lay discarded over her chair. It was the warmest September day since Sandor arrived to Italy.

They were sitting on the same terrace of the bar at the Piazza San Marco where they had first met. Predictably, she was uploading many pictures on her Facebook account and fretting about how best to post them, her purple laptop tethered to his phone. Some of them included him. She seemed just as innocent as before, when she had not yet seen a man die other than on the screen.

"My mother just liked one of the photos with you!" she announced, sounding most accomplished.

Had she been any other woman, he'd probably never let her take any pictures of him. But she was Sansa, pretty and kind. And clever. In the short time of their acquaintance he started to suspect he would always do as she wished. Even if she would tell him to get the hell out of her life and leave her be. The Hound enjoyed watching birds in nature, not keeping them in cages or teaching them to talk.

Sandor Clegane put down the newspaper he had been reading with a satisfied smile. He still preferred a hard copy to a news flash on his phone. On another day this would remind him how he was ten years older than Sansa, all immersed in her gadgets and networking. This morning, instead of the usual steady course of affairs sinking from bad to worse, matters were just getting better and better everywhere he looked.

Sansa beamed at him, at her photos, at his smile.

Let's spend a weekend in Venice, she said when they released him from the damn hospital. Little doctor had some serious nerve to threaten him the way she did, he had to admit that. And Sandor ended up so stupidly happy to go along with Sansa's idea, like a boy of six who was given a new wooden toy.

The espresso he was served was still too short for his liking, yet it smelled so much more delicious now than a week ago. Sansa... Sansa was his woman. And Stannis' precious nephew wasn't around to be a pain in the ass any longer, babysitting his uncle's wife, Selyse, and their daughter.

"About what you just said, no, baby, you were never an idiot." She did hear him. The Hound looked away from the sunlight in her hair, waiting for more.

"Stubborn and scared, yes," Sansa diagnosed him and hit his core, as usual, all the time sipping her bloody capuccino like a bloody lady. "You probably haven't told me everything yet about what happened... with Miss Martell all those years ago. Like how you came into possession of that videotape. I don't suppose you stole it and kept it hidden all these years." She remained very serious then, not allowing herself to smile.

Sandor emptied his coffee cup in one go and stared at her. His wife was reticent and tense, awaiting his reaction on the topic of Elia. He couldn't blame her. Why do you smile so much at me anyway? The way he reacted in all the mess his life had become after murdering Gregor was never particularly sane or normal.

Although it was a good thing to kill Gregor. There had never been a doubt in his mind: he had enjoyed it. At the age of twelve. What does that make you? Might be I should see the shrink Varys found for Elia, before I scare Sansa off by being who I am.

He wished to kiss that hidden smile off her face, drag her to some dark corner of the pretty, bloody city floating on water, far away from all the busy streets, sights and shops, and then stop all conversation. To see if she would deliver on her promise and bite him. Wondering what part of him she would choose was not the wisest idea unless he fancied a swim to cool down. The smell of the sea did not appeal to the Hound's senses so he had best stay dry.

And occasionally kiss Sansa in broad daylight. That was what couples did in Venice, wasn't it?

Also because, most unfortunately, his bad leg still hurt like hell, he walked with a crutch, and there were no shady corners in Venice this morning. The sun was so hot and so bright that nothing could escape its gaze.

A first day of a new life, he mused.

It seemed too good to be true that she wanted to be with him, but he was not one to question his good fortune for as long as it lasted, be it a day or a lifetime. He hoped for the latter.

Then, just like that, it became easy to talk to her about things he had never disclosed to anyone in his life, and that without getting angry or drunk first. He felt just so... Normal. Maybe he didn't need a shrink.

"So after I killed my brother to save Elia, Prince Oberyn's sister, I went home," he said, gazing at Sansa. Sunshine rained glitters on her hair just like that first day when he admired it and hated himself for wishing to be as handsome as Joffrey. "I went back to the house I shared with Gregor, the house where we all grew up. I didn't know where else to go. I remember looking at the album of my family pictures, wondering where it all went wrong."

We were a normal family, once.

Maybe I can have a normal family again. He looked at Sansa with no expectation, only hope.

"The police came for me pretty soon," he went on calmly, as if he were reading a newspaper article about someone else. "There were my fingerprints all over the murder weapon. And the forensics soon found both Gregor's hair and mine on the victim. On the next day, Tywin Lannister sent a lawyer to represent me. When we were left alone, the lawyer played me a tape of which you found a digital version in my phone. He told me that the security camera did not record everything and that what it did record could be seen as a proof against me being the rapist because Gregor and me looked so much alike. He told me they would not give the videotape to the judge, saying it was totally ruined, if I accepted the job Gregor had with Tywin Lannister when I turned 16 years old."

Somehow, as he spoke to her, the old, humiliating memory did not hurt.

"You see, Sansa," he rasped on, "Tywin was of the opinion that I was the ideal candidate to continue where Gregor stopped. The men who did for Gregor was just what Tywin needed. The lawyer told me they would get me out with minimal sentence and no real prison time."

"The problem was, he didn't even ask me what I did that day and if I hurt Elia or not." Sandor's gaze drifted towards the waterfront. "It was as if he expected that I raped her too, you know, with the pretty face I had, and neither him nor Tywin minded it very much."

"The thing is," Sandor looked Sansa in the eye, "before Elia, I dreamed about a proper position with the Lannisters. Their business in our city was as respectable as any and they paid well. But not as a juvenile offender who could never get any other job. I didn't want to depend on buggering Tywin Lannister, the man who employed my brother for his many talents. What would happen when Tywin changed his mind and kicked me out if I wasn't just like Gregor?" Sandor shivered involuntarily. "The lawyer left me a tape and went home for the evening, to his wife and children, I suppose."

Sansa's eyes were pale and showed comprehension, rather than pity. Good, he thought, I don't want your pity. He hoped she wasn't going to cry.

"So as soon as Tywin's employee was gone," he continued, "I told the police I didn't want this fancy lawyer. I wanted one appointed by the court. I went to the court and stayed silent."

Sansa took another sip of her coffee, all intent on him. He gathered his breath to finish the story. It was time to bury all that behind him if he was to have a future. "I was convicted for assault and murder, but not for rape. There was no conclusive evidence as to who started that, and, well, no-one quite finished it because I shot Gregor dead while he was at it."

"I never saw Tywin's lawyer again." Sandor gulped for air. Admitting one's own stupidity was much more difficult than it looked. "I thought that the Lannisters chose not to hand in the evidence because I didn't mention Tywin's offer in court. I never understood they did it because this tape was a forgery, an empty threat-"

"Not entirely empty," Sansa interrupted. "Back then the technology was less advanced. It could have been used against you."

"And now?" Sandor asked.

Sansa shrugged. "You can easily press charges against Mr Lannister if that is your wish."

"No," Sandor said, "I told Oberyn it was Tywin who set Gregor on Elia." With a malicious grin, he pushed the newspaper in Sansa's hands, open on the page he had been reading.

The Dornish figured out all their bird shit as he would have done in Oberyn's place, patching all those emails about the exposition as it should have been placed and paying some expert for decryption. They now knew more about the top secret non-existing anti-missile shield project in Europe than anyone else alive, including General Selmy. It was an excellent bargaining chip.

Sansa read in silence. The news section informed anyone who cared to know how Dornistan was going to conclude a groundbreaking treaty on cooperation in military matters with the west, ensuring all necessary conditions for the development of a revolutionary although yet undisclosed project of joint defence in the future.

"Oh," Sansa lifted her baby blue eyes to look at him again. "This will attract investors to their country, on top of their income from oil..."

"I should expect them to use part of all that money for an aggressive takeover of Lannister industries very soon," Sandor commented. "Nothing will bother Tywin Lannister more than a loss of influence." He was feeling like Varys must have felt most of his life, devious and clever, for a brief moment.

Sandor Clegane could understand plotting, but he didn't particularly enjoy it.

"Besides I... I have better things to do now than to pay lawyers," he said, very serious.

Sansa studied him with fascination, as if he were a bloody painting. She talked about her love of art all the way from Vicenza while he dozed happily from the pretty sound of her voice.

Now she made another photograph of him, leaned over the table and kissed him. "Do what, baby?"

Keep you tied in my bed. It was in contradiction with his other thoughts about allowing her freedom, and yet it wasn't. Maybe he did need a shrink.

"Huh," he said like a tame dog, "do things with you, I guess."

"May I ask just one more thing?" she said, crossing her legs primly and folding her hands in her lap. "Why keep the tape? Why not destroy it, for instance?"

"Dunnow," he said. "Today I would say that that no matter how much I always expected the worst, I must have secretly hoped for the best."

"It's what most men do," Sansa agreed surreptitiously, and imperceptibly lowered her eyes to her knees.

What now? he thought. You know everything.

"I received an email earlier this morning," she said very carefully. "It's from Mr Varys."

"What does he want from you?" Sandor's anger flared briefly. "Never tell anyone that Faceless Men password, did you hear me? Don't even tell me what it is or how you know it. Some people would kill for that knowledge."

"I would have never given them your name," Sansa said fervently. "So you best be glad I found out another way to log in and speak to them."

"I am," he grinned, "more than glad."

"Varys is offering me a short-term contract," Sansa said, closing the newspaper. The Hound saw genuine interest sparkling in her eyes. "It would be a project in your offices in London. It seems that one of your colleagues, Ms Brienne Tarth, announced she would go on maternity leave soon."

"Good for her and Jaime," Sandor said without thinking, and then, "No," simply.

Sansa's face shrunk.

"I mean, if you really want it, okay," he retraced his steps.

"Mr Varys ensures me I wouldn't be doing anything... dangerous... for a start. It appears that with Ms Tarth gone someone has to see if Mr Baelish's software can be put to good use," she paused.

"Nothing dangerous for a start is an understatement even for Varys!" he said bitterly, unable to contain his temper. "What we do is always dangerous!"

"And you were not going to quit, were you?" she peeped so gently that it hurt.

Part of her reason for wanting the job was actually him. Why didn't it surprise him?

It was also an excellent question. He didn't give it much thought since Varys gave him a choice. He also didn't know anything else he could do, anything he was moderately good at.

"I don't know," he said in all honesty. "Would you like me to stop?"

Sansa's face brightened again. "I would support any decision you made," she said, "but it makes me happy that you asked for my opinion."

"So, love, if we officially work together, you'll need a name, a code name," he said, jokingly.

"What's yours?" Sansa asked, slamming her laptop shut. "You've never told me."

The piazza, the huge church with its mighty domes, the table and the chairs, the tourists and the boats, they all somehow left the Hound's sharpened field of vision. There were only the two of them under the sun, a thing much stranger than anything late Prince Doran might have seen.

"I'm the Hound," he said casually, introducing himself all over again. He wondered how he was going to convince a talkative creature like Sansa that she should keep his alias a secret from everyone.

"Oh," Sansa said. "Jon told me so much about the Hound. It's this agent who can see, hear and smell things other men can't. And no-one knows exactly who he is. I suppose Mr Varys knows."

Sandor Clegane was immensely grateful to this Jon, whoever he was, for sparing him the need of explaining himself.

"Yes," the Hound agreed. "And Aemon. And you as of now. Third time is the charm."

"I know what my name will be," Sansa said, trying to look important in her yellow attire. She should always wear that colour, Sandor thought, distracted. Her bare shoulders were polished white, as if chiselled from marble like half of the bloody city. And so much warmer to touch than cold stone.

"What?" he asked more impatiently than he intended.

She tilted her head and chose the name he had given her, unasked for. The most beautiful name of all.

"Little Bird."